By  the  Same  Author: 


Novels: 
PASSION 
DEMOCRACY 

Plays: 
MY  COUNTRY 

Books  of  Travel,  etc.: 
THE  SOUL  OF  DENMARK 
LABOUR:  THE  GIANT  WITH  THE 
FEET  OF  CLAY 


GODS 


GODS 


BY 

SHAW   DESMOND 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  by 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


To  the  Unknown  God 


463416 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
LONDON 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    READING  AND  PRAYER 3 

II    BITTER-BLACK 6 

III  A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  or  JEMMY  FONTAINE    ....  15 

IV  BLOOD  AND  FIRE 23 

V    A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  PARIS  ASTHAR 37 

VI    THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS 45 

VII    FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  ' oo 

VIII    "BRANDS  FROM  THE  BURNING" 73 

IX    THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER 84 

PART  II 
IRELAND 

X    IRELAND 99 

XI    THE  LAND  OF  SHADOWS in 

XII    IMPERIAL  DOGMA 122 

XIII  EAST  AND  WEST 133 

XIV  THE  HUNGER-LINE 140 

XV    THE  HOUSE  OF  DREAMS 156 

XVI    "AND  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  ..." 167 

XVII    GHOST-HUNTING         178 

XVIII    PAUDEEN 19° 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX    HYSSOP  AND  VINEGAR 197 

XX    ELLEN  MASTERS ,207 

XXI    FAITH  AND  FINANCE 219 

XXII    SOULS  RECALCITRANT 226 

XXIII  THE  SOUL  or  A  NATION         231 

XXIV  "THIRTY  PIECES  OF  SILVER" 235 

XXV    IN  THE  MELTING  POT 243 

XXVI    "Goo  or  BATTLES" 252 

PART  III 
LOVE   AND   DEATH 

XXVII    OUT  OF  THE  GREEN  WATERS 269 

XXVIII    THE  WAKE 280 

XXIX    IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  OLD  CHAPEL        285 

XXX    "!N  SICKNESS  AND  HEALTH" 289 

XXXI    JEMMY  FONTAINE  DIES  IN  HARNESS 294 

XXXII    MELLERAY         299 

XXXIII  THE  FIGHT  TO  LIVE 307 

XXXIV  THE  CLEANSING  OF  TREVOR  TITTERLING '312 

XXXV    THE  BIRTH  OF  FINN 3^7 

XXXVI    THE  STORY  OF  FINN 322 

XXXVII    THE  STORY  OF  FINN  (CONTINUED) 326 

XXXVIII    THE  PASSING  OF  FINN 331 

XXXIX    THE  UNKNOWN  GOAL 334 


PART  I 
LONDON 


GODS 


READING   AND   PRAYER 

THE  drone  of  his  father's  voice  came  to  him  where  he  knelt, 
losing  itself  in  the  zooming  of  the  bee,  a  great  velvety-backed 
fellow  that  clambered  through  the  Marechal  Niel  outside  in  the 
scented  air  of  a  London  June,  lulling  him  to  sleep  and  to 
dreams. 

"Oh  God!  have  mercy  upon  us  poor  miserable  sinners  .  .  . 
have  mercy  .  .  .  mercy.  .  .  .  Send  down  thy  lightnings  upon 
the  stiff-necked  and  wicked.  ..." 

The  boy  found  himself  checked  into  a  consciousness  through 
which  began  to  steal,  irrelevantly,  questions — the  questions  he 
was  beginning  to  ask  "God."  Who  was  God? 

Was  He? 

The  interrogation  hooked  itself  incredibly  into  the  entity 
that  was  Finn  Fontaine,  dragging  him  into  full  consciousness. 

"...  save  us  from  the  worm  that  dieth  not  and  the  fire 
that  is  not  quenched.  ..." 

He  could  see  his  father's  trousers,  of  nondescript  seediness, 
where  he  crouched  small  and  shrunken  before  the  Lord.  Be- 
yond, his  mother,  unyielding,  held  herself  stiffly  on  the  thin 
carpet.  It  was  as  though  he  had  seen  them  for  the  first  time. 
They  were  strangers — hostile. 

But  God? 

There  was  the  hairy  sackclothed  giant  which  had  material- 
ised in  the  twilight  of  babyhood,  holding  Itself  aloof  and  men- 
acing. That  had  never  been  his,  though  it  had  held  itself, 
remote,  bogeyish,  through  his  seventeen  years  of  life.  .  .  , 

But  God? 


-  4  GODS 

There  had  been  those  others,  those  dark  playmates  of  his 
dreams,  sleeping  and  waking,  friendly  devils,  great  and  tiny, 
who  had  flitted  with  him  through  the  golden  shadow  of  Ad- 
ventureland.  With  them  he  had  travelled  the  world  around, 
scaling  mountains,  leaping  precipices,  hosting  in  enchanted 
castles.  Or  sometimes,  lifting  with  them  over  its  fleeting  edge, 
he  had  seen  it  unroll  beneath  him  where  the  lakes  shone  like 
mercury  in  the  forests  of  night  as  he  chased  towards  the  sun 
of  red  copper  that  flaunted  its  first  rays  upwards  over  the  rim 
of  the  darkened  earth.  Them  he  loved.  .  .  . 

But  God? 

There  was  the  little  Methodist  chapel  down  the  road  with 
an  Indweller,  fiery,  local,  implacable,  under  whom  his  father 
cowered  in  those  dismayed  intervals  when,  to  the  disgust  of  his 
wife  and  the  glory  of  God,  he  broke  out  from  the  great  dead 
Church  of  the  Established,  which  held  itself  in  aristocratic 
segregation  a  little  along  the  main  road  of  the  London  suburb 
on  the  right  hand  side  as  you  pass  the  painted  sign  of  the 
"White  Hart." 

But  God? 

His  eye,  roving,  caught  the  tiny  heap  of  saintliness  and  frayed 
silk  which  was  his  grandmother  and  which  bunched  itself  on 
its  knees  of  eighty  winters  between  its  son  and  grandson  in 
sweet  humility.  From  where  he  knelt,  his  eye,  peering  through 
the  loophole  of  thumb  and  forefinger,  searched  the  network  of 
indigo  that  veined  itself  over  the  diminutive  gnarled  hands 
where  they  pressed  themselves  against  the  eyes  of  china-blue, 
filmed  by  the  tears  of  pity  and  age.  Yes,  perhaps  there  was 
God — the  God  of  forgiveness  and  love — the  God  of  childlike 
hymns  and  praiseful  psalms  quavered  in  gentle  Irish  trebles 
by  a  fragile  figure  which  smiled  to  him  in  the  mornings,  minute 
on  the  high  white  altar  of  the  bed,  from  the  edge  of  which 
fell  the  three  steps  of  ascent  and  descent. 

But  he  was  not  the  God  of  Father  Lestrange,  the  slender 
dark  Jesuit  of  the  rolling  red-lit  eye,  who,  mistaking  him  for 
a  good  Catholic,  had  visited  him  when  he  lay  sick  of  the 
chicken-pox.  That  was  another  kind  of  God,  a  God  of  strange 
harshnesses  and  of  as  strange  indulgences,  a  God  for  whom 
good  and  evil  were  the  same. 

Nor  was  he  that  gloomy  exclusive  devil  of  Mrs.  Titterling, 
who  concerned  himself,  alone  of  the  sons  of  men,  with  the 


READING  AND  PRAYER  5 

Spirit's  Elect — the  God  of  a  dreadful  simplicity  who,  without 
blench,  unrevengeful,  damned  the  race  to  torture  eternal, 
plucking  from  their  midst  the  preordained  of  the  Elect — brands 
from  the  burning. 

"Brands  from  the  burning."  How  often  had  he  not  been 
plucked  from  the  burning  by  the  God  of  his  savings  by  grace 
— the  taskmaster  who  alternately  cajoled  and  terrorised  his 
submission  by  burning  fire  and  pearly  gate.  But  God? 

From  the  first  floor  came  the  tap-tap  of  the  lodger's  mallet. 
Strom,  the  Swedish  sculptor,  who  worshipped  a  God  so  in- 
effably remote  that  He  could  not  even  be  named.  A  nameless 
God. 

But  God? 

Where  was  He?    Who  was  He?    Why  was  He? 

Was  He  at  all?^ 

That  was  the  interrogative  to  which  he  always  came  back. 

"...  and  make  us  happy  ever  after  for  Christ's  sake. 
Amen." 

His  thoughts  were  broken  by  the  pushing  back  of  his  father's 
chair  as  he  rose  from  his  knees  after  communion  with  infinity. 
He  looked  down  at  the  little,  shrunken  head  with  its  fringe 
of  scanty  beard  and  whisker  out  of  which  the  eyes  of  liquid 
grey  glanced  at  him  puzzled,  fleetingly,  as  though  they  were 
ashamed,  in  the  way  that  they  had;  caught  the  stiff  made 
tie  of  black  silk  through  the  straggling  hair,  the  frock  coat 
of  Sunday's  shabby  gentility,  the  bagging  of  the  foreshortened 
trousers  which  lifted  themselves  indecently  over  the  buniony 
boots.  He  looked  at  his  mother,  the  predominating  partner 
by  a  head,  in  her  Sabbath  rigidity  of  watered  silk,  with  the 
eyes  of  hard  brown  that  gazed  in  truculent  virtue  out  over  his 
grandmother. 


II 

BITTER-BLACK 

JAMES  FONTAINE,  or  "Jemmy,"  as  he  was  known  to  his 
mother  and  wife  and  to  nobody  else  in  the  world,  for  he  had 
few  friends  and  no  intimates,  was  a  common  soldier  in  that 
grey  army  of  conformity — the  London  middle-middle  class,  the 
class  of  the  little  huckstering  commission  man,  the  clerk,  and 
the  counter-jumper — the  army  of  the  Unskilled. 

Jemmy  had  learnt  little  about  life  and  less  from  it.  They 
had  taught  him  in  the  schools  of  the  nation  to  read  a  little, 
to  write  a  little,  to  cipher  a  little — his  duty  towards  his  God, 
whom  he  knew  intimately,  and  towards  his  neighbour,  whom 
he  did  not  know  at  all,  and  turned  out  the  finished  article  at 
the  age  of  fourteen  or  so  to  be  a  credit  to  itself  and  to  its 
country  in  a  world  of  Free  Competition  and  Pure  Religion. 
There  were  also  educational  frills  in  respect  of  one's  duty  to 
one's  betters. 

The  Finished  Article  did  its  best.  That  is  to  say,  it  was 
flung  neck  and  crop  into  the  tin  tacks  and  'orneriness  of  a 
hardware  house  in  the  Borough,  whence  it  emerged,  slightly  dis- 
hevelled as  to  moral  and  pocket,  some  three  years  afterwards, 
to  be  precipitated  through  a  series  of  experiences  of  a  uniform- 
ity calculated  to  destroy  any  belief  in  human  nature  it  might 
originally  have  possessed,  and  Jemmy  Fontaine  was  a  man  of 
incredible  belief  and  of  as  incredible  suspicion.  It  was  not  that 
Jemmy  was  unsteady — the  whole  bent  of  his  nature  and  up- 
bringing was  "the  safe  job,"  but  he  had  an  Irishwoman  for  a 
mother,  and  when  a  man  has  an  Irishwoman  for  a  mother  he 
is  apt  to  develop  a  jumpiness  that  defies  even  the  calculation 
of  a  London  Cockney  father.  Finally,  he  had  brought  up  in 
"commissions." 

Finn,  who  to  his  father  was  as  astonishing  as  though  he 
had  generated  an  archangel  and  who  kept  him  in  a  state  that 

6 


BITTER-BLACK  7 

alternated  between  shock  and  stupefaction,  knew  nothing  of  the 
above — indeed  he  knew  nothing  at  all  about  his  father  except 
that  his  name  had  been  Fountain,  and  that  his  mother,  who  in 
these  things  was  sphinx-like,  had  issued  a  sort  of  ukase  under 
which,  accompanied  by  the  superfluity  of  Letters  Patent,  it 
had  been  changed  to  Fontaine.  "Fontainebleau,  near  Paris, 
you  know,"  she  would  say  in  polite  deprecation. 

It  seemed  that  his  uncle  Jasper,  a  red  hot  democrat  from 
New  York,  feeling  the  need  of  blood  for  the  dilution  of  a 
fortune  acquired  under  Tammany,  had  made  a  search  through 
the  College  of  Heralds,  who,  for  a  consideration,  provided  him 
with  a  remotely  unimpeachable  Huguenot  ancestry.  His 
mother  had  even  considered  the  possibilities  of  la  Fontaine,  but 
Jemmy,  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  his  married  life,  had 
kicked  at  the  "la."  He  said  it  was  "a  bit  too  thick,"  he 
could  not  swallow  it. 

Finn  had  not  only  had  to  swallow  the  Fontaine,  but  "Finn 
Nathaniel  Cuthey"  on  the  top  of  it.  His  mother  had  been  a 
Miss  Cuthey,  the  daughter  of  an  apothecary  in  a  Nottingham- 
shire village,  with  tendencies  to  self-annihilation  which  had 
matured  whilst  Fanny  Cuthey  was  still  in  short  frocks. 

"Never  forget  you  are  a  Cuthey,"  she  would  say  to  Finn, 
who  had  no  difficulty  in  the  matter  as  he  had  been  daily  re- 
minded of  it  over  a  period  of  years  by  his  schoolmates  who 
addressed  him  as  "Cuthey"  and  as  nothing  else.  The  "Na- 
thaniel" had  been  the  solitary  green  twig  of  his  mother's  im- 
agination, but  the  "Finn"  was  the  contribution  of  his  grand- 
mother, who,  Irish  to  her  last  hair,  had,  from  the  day  he  was 
born,  told  Finn  the  story  and  the  stories  of  Ireland,  not  for- 
getting his  immortal  namesake.  "We  had  Finns  in  the  family," 
said  she,  "when  Noah  was  a  boy — and  wasn't  the  great  Finn 
MacCoul  himself  wan  o'  thim.  What  more  d'ye  want?"  The 
argument  was  of  course  unanswerable. 

The  boy  watched  his  father  this  Saturday  afternoon  "doing" 
his  coal  accounts  in  the  little  back  room  which  was  half  office, 
half  eating  room — the  front  room  being  sacred  to  "visits"  and 
Sunday.  Despite  the  sun  outside,  the  place  was  not  so  dark  as 
a  coal  cellar  and  nearly  as  cool.  The  little  figure  in  its  office 
coat  of  black  alpaca  was  buried  in  a  mass  of  yellow  circulars 
which  fluttered  autumnally  to  the  carpet  when  it  moved  its 
elbows.  He  could  almost  read  the  bold,  lying  print  which 


8  GODS 

announced  to  a  world  indifferent  under  the  July  suns,  that 
"Martyr  and  MacGlusky's  coals  kept  the  Empire  warm."  He 
could  see  the  nice  distinction  which  separated  the  definiteness 
of  Extra-Special  from  "Specials,"  a  plural  of  non-committal, 
and  Super-Cookers  from  Ordinary  Nuts.  He  knew  them  by 
heart  and  so,  although  too  far  away  to  read  the  hateful 
characters,  he  followed  the  thin  line  down  to  the  exhaustion 
of  "Good  Black  House." 

His  mother  crocheted  inflexibly  under  the  little  French 
folding  doors  which  gave  access  to  the  skimpy  garden  and 
the  only  light  to  the  room,  placing  at  intervals  a  hard  brown 
eye  upon  her  husband's  bald  patch. 

"Goodness  gracious!  who  can  it  be  now?" 

The  bell-pull  always  made  Mrs.  Fontaine  jerky.  Finn,  who 
acted  as  maid  on  these  occasions,  glimpsed  with  foreboding 
the  shadow  that  showed  itself  through  the  muslin  remnant 
which  screened  the  semi-detachment  of  Ash  Villa  from  a 
curious  suburbdom.  High  and  thin  and  forbidding  it  hooked 
itself  into  the  corner  of  the  door  opening.  "I'm  coming  in — 
it's  no  good,  you  can't  keep  me  out!"  it  seemed  to  say. 

And  come  in  it  did,  with  the  scarecrow  hat  pierced  by  the 
Choctaw  feathers  a  little  askew  on  the  iron-grey  tresses  under 
which  the  eyes  stood  black,  arresting,  its  high  pinched  should- 
ers cribbed  by  the  black  silk  elbow  cape,  its  hands  and 
lower  arms  gauntleted  in  black  kid.  Its  right  hand  gripped 
an  umbrella  which  had  for  its  handle  an  idol-like  figure  of  a 
sneering  ferocity. 

It  was  only  after  Aunt  Bella  had  passed  him  in  the  narrow 
hall  that  Finn  discovered,  crouching  under  her  lee,  his  aunt 
Maria,  whose  flabbiness  under  the  concrete  of  her  sister 
took  a  consistency  which  left  her  as  nearly  invisible  as  no 
matter.  Aunt  Maria  had  one  good  eye  and  one  doubtful, 
over  the  latter  of  which  an  eyelid  would  drop  without  warning, 
leaving  the  semi-eclipsed  orb  to  roll  whitely  and  despairing, 
and  giving  her  a  rather  blackguardly  expression  that  belied 
her  real  nature,  for  Aunt  Maria  was  a  simple  soul. 

"It's  the  day  after  to-morrow  and  the  General  himself  will 
be  in  command,  with  Mr.  Pickles,  the  American  Revivalist. 
Pickles  says  he's  going  to  give  them  h — "  .  .  .  she  paused  for 
a  moment  in  her  impetuous  passage  through  the  little  room  into 
which  she  had  talked  her  way,  circled  a  trifle,  and  then,  as 


BITTER-BLACK  9 

though  overmastered  by  something  driving  at  her  from  the 
inside,  finished  the  word  she  had  begun.  .  .  .  "hell!"  she  said 
as  though  she  had  exploded  in  the  lower  deeps.  The  white 
jagged  scar  which  ran  from  eye  corner  to  mouth  corner 
twitched. 

Aunt  Maria's  eye  rolled  piously  and  doubtfully  at  Finn. 

"R-r-really,  Bella!"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine  coldly  expostulating. 
Her  husband's  frightened  face  showed  itself  over  his  elbow 
for  a  moment. 

"I  tell  you  what  it  is,  Fanny — what  you  and  your  Estab- 
lished lot  need  is  plain  speech  .  .  .  and  so  does  your  canting 
congregation.  ..."  She  turned  for  a  moment  fiercely  upon 
her  fat  sister,  who  wilted  slightly. 

"Do  you  know  'The  Bells  of  the  Monastery,'  Finn?"  Aunt 
Maria  asked  suddenly. 

"Don't  try  to  be  diplomatic,  Maria,"  said  Bella.  .  .  . 
"Plain  speech,"  she  went  on.  "Was  it  not  Isaiah  who  said: 
'I  have  come  to  curse,  not  to  bless — to  damn,  not  to  save?' " 
for  she  had  a  tendency  in  her  more  exalted  moments  to  become 
slightly  blasphemic  and  to  misquote  scripture  to  her  own  ends 
and  the  glory  of  God.  "And  the  General  is  a  second  Isaiah," 
she  continued.  "He  is  an  instrument — an  instrument — a 
mouthpiece." 

Mrs.  Fontaine  looked  contemptuously  at  her  sister.  "How 
old-fashioned  you  are,  Bella!  People  don't  speak  about  ..." 
she  hesitated  a  trifle  "...  hell  in  these  days  .  .  .  and  such 
places.  The  Bishop  never  does." 

"The  Bishop!"  erupted  her  sister.  "The  Bishop!"  A  man 
of  wrath.  An  apostate.  A  brand  for  the  burning.  His  lord- 
ship of  Whitechapel."  She  laughed. 

The  laugh  jarred  Finn  even  though  the  Bishop  of  White- 
chapel  had  been  one  of  his  disappointments.  Dr.  Goodheart 
had  not  only  confirmed  him  but  had  helped  to  prepare  him 
for  the  ceremony  in  the  Forestford  church.  He  could  see  now 
the  bewildered  good-natured  face  in  its  halo  of  whisker,  and 
the  bewilderment  which  had  taken  a  deeper  shade  as  Finn  had 
gradually  transformed  from  the  questioned  into  the  questioner, 
his  lordship,  too  ingenuous  to  be  ingenious,  tying  himself  into 
a  series  of  theological  knots  which  left  him  helpless  in  the 
slightly  ridiculous  way  that  had  made  Finn  feel  mean. 
"But  one  dare  not  question  those  things,"  he  had  said,  and 


io  GODS 

then,  more  weakly.  .  .  .  "they  never  used  to  be  questioned." 
Then  he  had  looked  at  the  long  shearing  nose,  the  green  rather 
angry  eyes,  and  the  small  pugnacious  ears  with  the  queer 
upper-lobe  depressions  of  the  boy  before  him,  and  had  been 
silent. 

But  his  mother  with  the  acquisitiveness  which  made  her 
determined  to  get  anything  that  might  be  going,  either  in 
this  world  or  the  next,  had  spurred  the  1 5-year  doubter  to 
the  altar,  where  he  found  himself  in  a  tight  pair  of  new  brown 
boots  and  a  bristle  of  hair  that  refused  to  be  soothed  by 
olive  oil.  Both  the  bishop  and  his  mother  had  assured  him  of 
the  solemn  investiture  of  the  ceremony,  the  latter  hinting,  in 
response  to  the  demand  for  theological  concreteness,  at  what 
she  called  "possession,"  and  so  he  had  waited,  hoping  against 
hope.  He  had  felt  the  gentle  hands  upon  his  head,  had  held 
his  breath.  .  .  .  and  then  had  relapsed  into  the  torture  of 
the  boots  and  a  deeper  scepticism. 

And  now  he  sat  looking  at  the  woman  who  had  laughed.  He 
knew  her  history.  A  spoiled  beauty  who  had  thrown  her 
suitors  away  like  used  dish-clouts — an  ugly  accident — and  then 
obliteration.  The  acid  of  years — the  dangerous  age  of  Indian 
summer  in  which  a  High-church  parson  had  unwittingly  helped 
her  to  find  a  heart  and  with  it  a  passion  of  religion  in  the 
Establishment — love's  labour  lost — hate — and  then  the  plunge 
into  Methodism  and  hell-fire. 

That  unreasoning  irritation  with  his  family  gathered  within 
him  like  a  poisonous  secretion.  He  could  see  the  God  of 
Aunt  Bella,  a  sort  of  anthropomorphic  god  of  leather  mouth 
and  brazen  lung  who  prayed,  praised,  and  damned — and  there 
was  his  father's,  a  variation  of  Aunt  Bella's,  but  a  snob — and 
his  mother's,  who  was  all  snob.  The  God  of  his  Aunt  Maria, 
as  that  of  his  grandmother,  he  could  not  see,  though  the  God  of 
Father  Lestrange  was  definite — a  fierce  dark  man  of  tanned 
face  and  haunting  smile  which  came  and  went  under  the  flick- 
ering fires  of  the  open  pit  before  him,  whilst  above  a  galaxy  of 
saints  and  angels  set  golden  in  the  tenuous  blue  of  the  starry 
firmament.  He  could  never  separate  the  Jesuit  from  his  God — 
in  a  sense  they  were  one  and  the  same  thing. 

He  was  pulled  up  by  a  knock  at  the  street  door,  which 
Aunt  Maria,  who  seemed  to  want  to  get  out  of  the  room,  went 
to  open.  There  fell  a  sudden  silence  as  the  dark  full  tones 


BITTER-BLACK  n 

came  from  the  passage,  the  closing  of  the  door  into  the  little 
drawing-room,  and  then  Aunt  Maria,  breathless,  to  tell  them 
that  Father  Lestrange  was  in  the  next  room. 

"The  Scarlet  Woman,"  said  Aunt  Bella. 

Then  the  exodus — his  mother  at  the  head,  with  Aunt  Bella 
on  her  heels,  his  father  struggling  into  his  second  best  jacket 
as  he  went  out  with  Aunt  Maria  panting  behind,  and  then  the 
little  grandmother  bobbing  serenely  along.  It  was  as  though 
something  were  drawing  them  irresistibly. 

The  tall  man  with  the  dark  hair  rolling  over  the  high  fore- 
head which  showed  white  against  the  tan  of  his  face,  stood 
gravely  to  receive  them,  bowing  ceremoniously  to  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine, taking  in  her  sister  Bella  with  the  corner  of  an  eye  not 
altogether  unfriendly  and  Jemmy  with  a  warm  handshake, 
which  he  extended  to  Finn  with  his  left  as  to  an  old  comrade. 
Then,  with  an  encouraging  nod  to  Aunt  Maria  who  was  trying, 
and  vainly,  to  obliterate  herself  behind  her  sister,  he  went  over 
to  the  little  silvery  grandmother,  smiling  beautifully  to  her  as 
he  hid  the  old  lady's  tiny  hands  in  his  big  brown  ones,  passed 
one  of  them  through  his  arm,  and  led  her  in  state  to  the  arm- 
chair in  the  corner,  the  little  woman  smiling  up  at  him,  con- 
fiding, like  a  child,  as  he  did  so. 

"Ah,  Father,"  said  she,  "but  you  have  the  beautiful  way  wid 
ye.  'Tis  you  that  are  too  good  to  a  poor  old  heretic  like 
meself." 

"There  are  heretics  and  heretics  and  Catholics  and  Catho- 
lics, my  dear  madam,  and  I  think  that  some  day  you  will  find 
prepared  for  you  a  place  not  far  from  the  Lady  whom  we 
Catholics  love  and  honour  above  all  others."  There  came  that 
all-understanding  smile  to  the  high  dark  face  and  the  red 
lights  to  the  eyes,  like  little  tongues  of  flame,  which  then 
extinguished. 

"Compromise!"  ejaculated  Aunt  Bella  triumphantly.  She 
had  been  moving  uneasily  from  one  foot  to  another  like  a 
boxer  waiting  a  chance  to  dart  in.  "And  you  call  yourself  a 
good  Catholic,  Father  Lestrange.  I  thought  your  Church  never 
compromised." 

"Upon  the  unessentials,  my  dear  madam,  the  unessentials. 
.  .  .  There  is  so  much  that  is  unessential,"  he  continued 
absently.  "Compromise  is  the  essential  of  all  religion  as  of  all 
deviltry.  We  must  compromise." 


12  GODS 

"But  not  with  the  devil." 

"It  is  especially  with  Sathanas  that  the  Church  has  to  com- 
promise. If  the  Church  didn't  compromise  it  would  never  win 
souls.  Even  the  devil  must  have  his  due,  Miss  Cuthey.  Poor 
devil!" 

The  glittering  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  priest's  as  those 
of  a  bird  on  a  snake's.  Like  so  many  others,  Aunt  Bella  could 
never  make  up  her  mind  whether  to  hate  or  love  the  Jesuit. 

"I  believe  you  are  the  devil's  advocate,"  she  snapped  at 
last. 

"You  pay  me  too  great  honour,  madam,  when  you  make  me 
Advocatus  Diaboli.  His  Majesty  has  at  his  command  kings 
and  princes,  prime  ministers  and  bishops,  and  brains  like  that 
of  Mr.  Paris  Asthar.  No,  I  do  not  deserve  the  honour."  He 
bowed  in  tender  irony  as  he  rolled  the  "r's"  softly. 

Jemmy  Fontaine  looked  from  one  to  the  other,  frightened 
at  all  this  diabolical  conversation,  his  wife  with  an  under- 
ground smile  at  her  sister's  claw-clipping. 

"We  are  all  going  on  Monday  to  the  Tabernacle  on  Kings- 
way  Waste  to  hear  General  Bliss  and  Billy  Pickles,  the  Ameri- 
can evangelist,  Father  Lestrange.  Won't  you  join  us?"  She 
looked  at  him  poisonously. 

"Speak  for  yourself,  Bella,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine  with  dignity 
and  slightly  glancing  at  the  priest.  "I  never  promised  any- 
thing of  the  kind.  Jemmy  and  I  are  Church." 

"No,  he's  not,"  said  Bella,  "he's  chapel  at  heart." 

Jemmy  Fontaine  smiled  nervously. 

"Jemmy's  Church  of  England,"  said  his  wife,  decisively. 
Her  husband's  lips  quivered  in  mute  protest.  There  were 
heroic  moments  in  Jemmy's  life. 

The  Jesuit  looked  at  the  little  man  with  that  beautiful,  sad 
smile  that  brought  to  Finn,  sitting  behind,  a  picture  of  the 
Jesus  he  had  seen  in  a  visit  of  solitary  adventure  to  the  Na- 
tional Gallery.  It  was  called  "The  Man  of  Compassion."  He 
felt  a  sympathy  with  his  father,  unexpected. 

"And  as  I  suppose  Finn  is  also  Church  of  England,  he 
won't  be  able  to  come  either."  There  was  something  deliberate 
in  Father  Lestrange's  voice  as  he  looked  at  Finn.  The  boy 
felt  something  rise  within  him  as  he  caught  the  priest's  eye. 

"Yes,"  said  his  mother  complacently,  "Finn  is  a  good 
Churchman.  Aren't  you  Finn?" 


BITTER-BLACK  13 

The  priest  still  looked  at  the  boy,  who  sat  there,  sullen,  the 
long  strong  nose  challenging;  the  ears  setting  themselves  a 
trifle  too  closely  to  the  large,  well-balanced  head. 

"You're  not  afraid  to  answer,  Finn,  are  you?"  The  priest 
said  it  easily  enough,  but  there  was  something  mocking,  chal- 
lenging, in  the  eyes  that  stared  at  the  boy. 

The  green  eyes  kindled.  It  was  as  though  the  look  had 
brought  him  to  ignition. 

"No!"  said  the  boy,  and  shut  his  jaws  like  a  trap. 

"What  do  you  mean  Finn!"  His  mother  stared  at  him,  in- 
credulous. "You  know  you  believe  in  the  Church.  .  .  ." 

"And  Christianity,"  said  the  Father,  still  with  that  smile. 

"I  don't  know  what  I  believe!" 

"Finn!" 

"The  boy  is  mad!" 

"Atheist!" 

"Monster! "    This  last  from  Aunt  Bella. 

They  gazed  at  him  as  though  they  saw  him  already  within 
the  mouth  of  the  pit,  his  father  with  slackened  jaw,  from  which 
trickled  a  thin,  bewildered  stream — all  except  Father  Le- 
strange. 

There  came  a  chuckle  from  the  door,  around  the  edge  of 
which  a  great  nose  showed  itself,  trembling. 

Aunt  Judy  had,  as  was  her  custom,  stolen  in  the  back  way 
without  knocking  and  had  been  listening.  Aunt  Judy  had 
been  and  still  was  the  ugly  duckling  of  the  Cutheys,  the  de- 
spised of  all  and  the  hated  of  Bella  the  beauty  who  took 
her  ugliness  as  a  sort  of  physical  affront.  Aunt  Judy  had  been 
born  with  a  brain  in  which  some  turn  of  filament  had  ban- 
ished from  her  mind  the  power  to  believe,  and  given,  in  its 
stead,  the  desire,  a  desire  which  had  grown  in  strength  and 
hopelessness  with  years.  She  had  passed  from  congregation  to 
congregation  in  her  quest,  and  at  present  was  in  the  throes  of 
the  Spirit's  Elect. 

She  came  into  the  room,  her  head  covered  by  a  high  round 
hat  which  set  itself  over  her  nose,  trembling  as  though  it  were 
hung  on  wires,  the  all-mended  clothes  of  her  poverty  hang- 
ing from  the  angles  of  her  frame,  the  yellow  goat-like  eyes 
looking  from  face  to  face  as  though  seeking  something. 

As  her  eyes  met  those  of  the  priest,  they  smiled,  and  it  was 
strange  how  one  forgot  the  grotesqueness  in  the  smile.  He  took 


14  GODS 

her  warmly  by  the  hand  and  led  her  to  a  corner  where  she 
sat,  sideways,  her  great  nose  resting  against  the  wall  paper,  to 
laugh  there  heartbrokenly  from  time  to  time  and  to  draw  upon 
herself  the  contemptuous  sniff  of  her  sister  Bella,  who  had  al- 
ways hated  her  ugliness  from  the  days  when  they  had  been 
children  together. 

"He  doesn't  believe,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine  as  though  there 
had  been  no  interruption.  "He  doesn't  believe!"  She  pointed 
vacantly  at  Finn  who  now  sat,  silent,  after  his  outburst. 

"The  Zeitgeist"  said  the  priest,  smiling.  "The  spirit  of  the 
time.  The  spirit  of  flux."  There  was  a  subtle  triumph  in 
the  voice. 

"The  bad  Irish  in  him,"  said  Finn's  mother,  vaguely. 

The  priest  smiled  beautifully.  "I  am  an  Irishman  my- 
self," he  said. 

"His  speech  bewrayeth  him,"  murmured  Aunt  Maria,  who 
had  a  natural  aversion  to  Irishmen,  arising  partly  from  a  con- 
fused notion  as  to  their  Church's  association  with  the  Scarlet 
Woman.  The  doubtful  eye,  flickering,  uncertain,  looked  at 
him  as  though  he  were  the  devil  as  she  pressed  herself  be- 
hind her  sister  Bella,  some  pounds,  however,  exuding  on  either 
side. 

"But  I  will  come  with  you  all  on  Friday  night,"  said  Father 
Lestrange,  "and  meet  the  General  and  Mr.  Pickles,  who  I  be- 
lieve is  generally  known  as  Hell  Fire  Billy.  Bliss  and  Pickles 
sound  like  an  excellent  mixture." 

He  paused  a  moment,  stared  at  the  boy,  and  said:  "Finn, 
I  am  ashamed  of  you!" 

They  all  seemed  to  breathe  more  freely  when  he  had  gone. 


Ill 

I 
A    DAY    IN    THE    LIFE    OF    JEMMY    FONTAINE 

JEMMY  FONTAINE  stood  in  the  hall  of  Ash  Villa,  suffering 
the  ministrations  of  his  wife,  who  was  preening  him  for  the 
day's  adventure. 

And  it  was  an  adventure — a  very  desperate  breaking  away 
from  the  beaten  paths  beloved  of  Jemmy  and  his  kind. 

"For  coals  were,  in  the  words  of  the  unredeemable  Mao 
Glusky,  a  Scotsman  who  blended  his  theology  with  his  whisky 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  former,  "going  to  hell,"  where,  as 
he  remarked,  "nobody  wanted  them." 

Jemmy  had  been  warned  that  the  London  suburb  of  Forest- 
ford  was  a  part  of  that  Empire  which  was  warmed  by  Martyr 
and  MacGlusky,  and  when  he  had  inserted  humbly  something 
about  a  combination  of  "slack"  and  "hot  weather,"  and  a 
fainter  "short  weight,"  the  MacGlusky  had  replied  through  his 
whiskers:  "We  ken  a'  aboot  that  story — ye  can  tell  that  to 
the  Auld  Lichts."  The  terrible  Mac,  himself  recusant  from 
the  sect  of  the  Auld  Lichts,  now  hated  them  with  a  devastat- 
ing hate  and  quoted  them  on  all  occasions  to  ignorant  Sas- 
senachs  who  believed  him  really  to  be  referring  to  a  South  Sea 
tribe  or  something  of  that  kind. 

So  Jemmy  was  about  to  try  soap — "Beauty  Soap,"  as  the 
angelic  figures  of  a  transparent  sexlessness  which  lost  itself  in 
the  rosy  dawns  of  the  pictures  which  filled  his  bag,  advertised 
to  a  sceptical  and  unwashed  world.  "You  buy  10  Ibs.  of 
Beauty  and  you  get  your  photograph  enlarged."  There  on 
the  rickety  hall  chair  reclined  the  pattern  enlarged  lady  her* 
self,  with  features  of  a  regularity  incredible  and  a  downcast 
eye,  who  seemed  to  feel  her  position  acutely.  It  was  the  lady 
to  whom,  in  the  days  that  followed,  when  she  had  been  hung 
on  the  walls  of  Ash  Villa,  Mrs.  Fontaine  referred  distinctly  to 
visitors  as  "a  distant  relation." 

Mrs.  Fontaine  moved  around  him  uneasily,  dabbing  with 

15 


1 6  GODS 

the  clothes  brush  at  the  lapels  of  his  frock  coat,  greened  under 
the  suns  of  many  summers.  The  trousers  she  left  alone — 
they  were  past  brushing,  but  to  the  top  hat  which  under  the 
vain  imagining  of  Mr.  Fontaine  "impressed  the  customers,"  she 
devoted  a  torn  silk  handkerchief  with  which  she  repeatedly 
caressed  its  fuzzy  rebellion.  Like  her  husband,  Mrs.  Fontaine 
was  a  hopeless  optimist. 

But  it  was  the  boots  that  were  Jemmy's  eternal  problem, 
a  problem  to  which  during  his  quarter  of  a  century's  pilgrim- 
ages on  commission  he  had  given  something  like  the  same  at- 
tention that  had  enabled  Napoleon  to  carry  through  one  of 
his  victorious  campaigns.  It  was  that  other  soldier  of  fortune 
who  said  that  an  army  marches  on  its  belly,  but  Jemmy  knew 
better — he  knew  that  it  marched  on  its  boots.  A  fickle  nature 
had  bestowed  on  Jemmy  a  pair  of  odd  sizes  in  feet,  which  as 
the  years  progressed  had,  under  the  influence  of  cheap  boots 
and  bunions,  developed  a  tendency  to  become  out-sizes.  So 
it  was  that  Jemmy  had  been  compelled  to  slash  his  infrequent 
boots  with  surgical  accuracy  surprising,  in  order  to  "ease"  the 
bunions  which  erupted  through  the  interstices,  and  as  Jemmy's 
mother  had  always  made  him  wear  white  woollen  socks,  the 
result  was  striking. 

Sometimes  a  pen  and  ink  camouflaged  the  more  flagrant 
eruptions,  but  this  did  not  help  much.  The  situation  was 
further  complicated  by  a  perfect  Vesuvius  on  the  little  toe 
which  could  not  be  eased  because  it  was  below  water  level, 
and  by  Mr.  Blakey,  who  placed  his  boot  protectors  on  the  soles 
of  Jemmy  Fontaine's  aching  feet,  bringing  up  those  soft  corns 
upon  which  he  wasted,  as  his  wife  said,  enough  new  beefsteak 
soaked  in  vinegar  to  keep  a  family. 

The  feet  of  Jemmy  Fontaine  were  in  fact  a  problem  to  the 
insolubility  of  which  each  of  the  four  seasons  made  its  con- 
tribution of  heat  or  moisture. 

You  see  him  as  his  wife  gives  him  the  final  touches,  trim- 
ming a  corner  of  his  cuff  here,  running  the  back  of  her 
thumb  nail  along  his  collar  there  (Jemmy  had  a  weakness  for 
high  collars  which  ate  into  the  softer  parts  of  his  neck),  and 
pushing  into  his  left  hand  breast  pocket  the  original  of  the 
enlarged  lady,  who  still  gazed  obstinately  downwards  as  she 
retired  into  her  brown  paper  envelope  and  was  tucked  away 
under  Jemmy's  right  arm. 


A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JEMMY  FONTAINE       17 

You  see  him  with  the  glazed  bag  a  trifle  down  by  the 
stern  with  Beauty  and  a  bit  of  dinner,  as,  having  been  pecked 
perfunctorily  by  the  partner  of  his  fortunes,  he  sets  out  down 
the  dusty  road  under  the  premonitory  sting  of  the  June  sun, 
still  echoing  his  wife's  parting  admonition:  "Whatever  you  do, 
don't  part  your  coat  at  the  back  when  you  sit  down  because 
of  that  patch!"  and,  fainter,  the  verse  he  had  read  out  that 
morning  at  reading  and  prayer:  "Not  one  sparrow  shall  fall 
to  the  ground  .  .  .  not  one .  .  .  . " 

This  day  there  was  an  unusual  palpitation  in  his  hands,  his 
feet,  and  even  his  throat,  the  tremblement  that  always  came  to 
Jemmy  Fontaine  when  breaking  new  ground.  It  was  the 
tremblement  of  the  gambler.  Somewhere  out  there  in  the  grey 
immensity  about  him,  veiled  in  the  morning  haze,  Fortune 
waited  for  him  to  touch,  unknowing,  the  hem  of  her  garment. 
The  grey  eyes  searched  wistfully  from  the  top  of  the  tram 
towards  the  smudge  of  houses  that  reached  out  from  the  welter 
behind  him  to  gather  him  in.  Trot — trot — trot.  Ting — a — 
ling — a — ling.  The  toy  tram,  brave  in  its  green  and  gold, 
drawn  by  the  horses  which  had  not  turned  into  the  twentieth 
century  soon  to  dawn,  became  a  triumphal  car,  its  tinkling 
bells  the  bells  of  fairyland.  In  his  agitation,  Jemmy  forgot 
his  wife's  injunction  and  parted  his  coat  tails  shamelessly. 

That  this  neighbourhood  was  a  regular  Tom  Tiddler's  Ground 
he  had  been  told  by  an  optimistic  liar  in  oleographs  whose 
broken  nose  and  baggy  trousers  he  had  met  in  one  of  his  coal 
sallies.  The  nose  very  much  on  one  side,  the  eyes  just  clearing 
the  brim  of  the  bowler,  had  said:  " You Ve  only  got  to  pick  it 
up,  guv'nor — they  fair  cast  it  at  you.  I  did  thirty-two  'Heart's 
Dilemmas'  and  fourteen  'Appy  Mounting  'Omes'  the  fust  day 
— and  just  look  at  me  after  a  week."  He  had  then,  in  his  own 
words,  "touched"  Jemmy  for  a  shilling  on  the  strength  of  the 
tip  and  had  sent  him  on  his  way  suspicious  but  believing. 

The  haze  had  been  eaten  up  by  the  sun  as  the  green  and 
gold,  its  glories  dimming  under  the  Sahara  thrown  up  by  the 
horses,  trotted  its  way  into  the  first  of  the  long  gullets  of 
brick  and  mortar  lying  whitey-grey  in  the  dust  of  the  London 
June  day.  Jemmy  felt  his  way  carefully  down  the  winding 
stair  as  the  tram  pulled  up  at  "The  Old  Girl  at  Home,"  the 
brasses  and  gilding  of  whom  stared  the  sun  itself  out  of  coun- 
tenance like  the  brazen  hussy  she  was.  Somewhere  a  piano 


1 8  GODS 

organ  was  playing  that  popular  refrain — "The  Man  that  Broke 
the  Bank  at  Monte  Carlo,"  trailing  off  the  melody  in  runs  of 
brassy  virtuosity. 

Mr.  Fontaine  faced  around  the  corner  into  the  first  of  the 
Kitchener  and  Wolseley  and  Victoria  streets.  The  new 
suburb  was  both  loyal  and  martial.  That  it  needed  soap  was 
obvious. 

It  was  with  a  compression  of  the  heart-strings  that  Jemmy 
knocked  at  his  first  door,  after  loosing  the  catch  of  the  glazed 
bag  to  stand  it,  invitingly  ajar,  on  the  doorstep  and  half 
drawing  the  enlarged  lady  from  her  brown  paper  with  the 
diminutive  original  clasped  in  the  left  hand  to  prison  the  eye 
that  opened. 

But  no  eye  appeared.  The  little  twenty-pound  a-year  was 
as  fast  bolted,  banned,  and  barred  as  any  castle  of  them  all. 

That  "Englishman's  home  is  his  castle,"  of  which  Jemmy 
despite  his  Irish  blood  had  boasted  in  moments  of  imperial 
pridefulness  after  reading  it  each  morning  in  "The  Earth,"  the 
authoritative  halfpenny,  which  occupied  a  place  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels  of  the  Bible  that  was  his  only  other  mental 
nutriment — took  a  new  significance,  especially  after,  the  sun 
getting  up  and  the  morning  drawing  on,  he  found  other  Eng- 
lishmen's homes  in  the  bricks  and  mortar  that  seemed  to  wrap 
itself,  labyrinthine,  about  him. 

Gaining  courage  with  the  despair  which  was  beginning  to 
haunt  the  pit  of  his  stomach  like  a  seasickness,  Jemmy  would 
knock  again  and  yet  again  at  these  fastnesses,  even  going  the 
length  of  peering  from  the  twelve  by  four  front  garden  into 
the  Holy  of  Holies  screened  by  the  same  starched  curtains, 
before  which  the  Lower  Middle  Class  had  erected  its  altar — 
the  waxen  apple;  the  stuffed  bird;  the  plaster  statue;  all 
chastely  encased  in  glass  and  standing  upon  the  altar  cloth  of 
the  antimacassar.  And  behind,  dimly,  its  fantasy  run  riot  in 
the  chairs  of  red  velvet,  the  bric-a-brac  of  the  mantelshelf,  and 
the  "Heart's  Dilemmas"  and  "Happy  Mountain  Homes"  of 
the  man  with  the  broken  nose. 

Not  that  all  the  doors  were  adamantine. 

Sometimes  a  small  child  would  appear,  upon  whose  dirty 
head  Jemmy  would  expend  his  blandishments,  partly  for  busi- 
ness purposes  (he  had  come  to  be  a  perfect  Machiavelli,  had 
Jemmy)  but  partly  from  nature.  Once,  after  a  prolonged  salvo 


A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JEMMY  FONTAINE       19 

on  the  knocker,  treading  on  the  heels  of  several  shorter  ones, 
the  door  had  opened  without  warning,  disclosing  to  the  dis- 
mayed Jemmy  the  enraged  and  hairy-breasted  owner  in  open 
shirt,  trousers,  and  bare  feet,  and,  without  parley,  had  as 
suddenly  shut  with  a  report  like  a  gun.  Some  let  themselves 
ajar  and  as  silently  closed — some  gaped  at  him:  "Now  then, 
wot  is  it  this  time!"  Some  were  kind,  but  had  no  money; 
others  may  have  had  the  money  but  certainly  were  unkind. 
And  one — the  one  that  had  made  him  flush  with  shame — had 
offered  him  a  cup  of  tea.  The  refusal  that  met  the  offer  had  a 
dignity  of  its  own  which  impressed  the  giver  to  say,  apolo- 
getic, that  she  had  only  done  it  "for  Christ's  sake,"  which 
but  added  insult  to  injury — for  Jemmy  was,  in  his  own  way, 
as  proud  as  Lucifer. 

But  there  was  the  meeting  in  the  Tabernacle  that  evening 
which  somehow  kept  him  going.  It  was  an  escape  though  he 
did  not  know  it.  Jemmy  Fontaine  never  did  know  anything. 

If  anybody  had  told  Jemmy  Fontaine  he  was  a  hero,  he 
would  have  been  much  surprised.  But  nobody  did  so.  There 
were  so  many  other  Jemmies,  only  separated  from  him  by  a 
line  of  houses,  tramping  the  labyrinth  about  him,  caught  like 
him  in  something  not  to  be  understood  and  therefore  not  to 
be  thought  about. 

The  piano  organ  which  had  been  tracking  him  during  the 
morning  and  the  strains  of  which,  fleeting,  had  come  to  him 
over  the  intervening  roofs,  now  met  him  festively  as  he  turned 
into  the  Gladys  Road.  The  organist,  an  ingratiating  mous- 
tached  alien,  turning  his  handle  to  the  children  who  garlanded 
him,  was  grinding  out  "The  Man  Who  Broke  the  Bank"  to  the 
shrill  of  their  voices: 

"As  I  walked  along  the  Continong  with  a  hindependent  air, 
You  can  'ear  the  girls  declare 
'E  must  be  a  millionaire. 
And  then  they  sigh  and  wish  to  die, 

And  then  they  wink  the  other  eye.  .  .  . 

and  then  the  triumphant — 

"For  I'm  the  Man  that  Broke  the  Bank  at  Monte  Carlo!" 

There  was  a  light  and  shine  with  the  dancing  singing  children 

under  the  sun  beat,  which,  with  the  words,  seemed  to  mock 

him  as  he  faltered  there  with  his  bag  and  picture.    His  legs 


20  GODS 

trembled  under  him  and  the  place  seemed  to  turn  round.  He 
could  do  no  more. 

Jemmy  Fontaine  swallowed  his  pride  and  sat  down  on  the 
nearest  doorstep,  watching  the  children  as  they  danced,  and 
whilst  they  danced,  the  organ  man  and  the  pease  pudding 
house  behind  him  and  the  street  seemed  to  dance  too. 

It  came  to  Jemmy  that  it  must  be  want  of  food.  He  opened 
the  black  bag  and  felt  for  the  packet  of  boiled  beef  sandwiches 
now  disintegrating.  He  inserted  the  first  and  second  fingers  of 
his  right  hand  into  the  paper  packet  without  taking  it  from  the 
bag  in  a  vain  attempt  to  secure  edible  morsels  without  being 
observed  by  the  passers  by,  but  with  indifferent  success,  as  the 
bread  broke  in  his  hand,  whilst  the  beef  held.  Tearing  the 
wrapping  in  his  desperation,  he  did  manage  to  secure  a  triple 
alliance  of  meat,  bread,  and  paper,  which  he  passed  furtively 
to  his  mouth,  for  Jemmy  had  the  instinct  which  the  middle- 
class  shares  with  the  Indian  and  the  dog,  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  disgrace  in  the  act  of  eating.  The  dessication  of  the 
crumbs  choked  him,  nor  could  any  moistening  of  his  parched 
lips  and  throat  bring  the  needful  lubrication.  After  a  time  he 
gave  it  up,  the  last  unswallowed  morsel  resting  pensively  in  his 
mouth,  the  eye,  wandering,  catching  the  words  above  the  win- 
dow of  the  Pudding  Shop: 

"A  Good  Pull-up  for  Carmen," 

hovered  a  moment  and  then  fell  fatefully  to  the  sprawl  of  letter 
across  the  window  beneath: 

"Pudding— Spotted  2d.,  Plain  id." 

The  eye  lighted.    Jemmy  liked  pudding. 

He  knew  it  was  quite  indefensible  to  Fanny,  who  had  packed 
the  beef  sandwiches  as  prophylactic  against  exactly  such  temp- 
tation, just  as  she  had  placed  six  pennies  in  his  pocket  against 
remoter  contingency.  He  knew  that  the  conscience  which  was 
the  terror  of  his  life  would  prod  him  later  in  his  tenderer  spots. 
He  knew  he  shouldn't.  But  he  did. 

The  gentleman  behind  the  bar  was  consideration  itself.  The 
quiff  of  plastered  hair,  the  dark  humoursome  eyes,  and  the 
white  apron  with  the  yellow  blotches,  came  forward  over  the 
high  counter  to  greet  the  unusual  apparition  of  a  customer  in 
a  high  hat.  Behind,  the  Pudding  steamed  yeastily.  There 


A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JEMMY  FONTAINE       21 

were  two  piles,  one  with  plums  and  one  without,  or,  as  the 
window  truly  said,  one  spotted  and  one  plain. 

Two  smaller  piles  stood  at  the  side.  They  did  not  steam, 
They  were  cold  and  clammy  with  something  of  the  day  before 
about  them. 

"Good  arternoon,  guv'nor,  an'  wot  may  I  'ave  the  pleasure 
of  doing  for  you?" 

Jemmy,  fascinated,  looked  through  him  at  the  pudding  be- 
hind. But  he  did  not  forget  the  condescension  of  the  middle- 
class  to  pudding. 

"Thought  I'd  try  twopennorth  for  fun.  Haven't  eaten  it 
since  I  was  a  boy."  He  smiled  weakly. 

The  gentleman  with  the  quiff  understood.  He  was  a  man  of 
lightning  comprehensions  born  of  emergency  extraordinary. 

"Quite  understand,  guv'nor.  Old  times'  sake  as  you  might 
sye.  'Ere,"  expansively,  as  he  turned  to  the  smoking  piles  be- 
hind, "we  'ave  two  kinds — spotted  and  plain.  Penny  plain- 
tuppence  spotted — and  worth  the  money.  W'ch  shall  it  be 
guv'nor?  Sye  the  word." 

Jemmy  looked  at  the  sickliness  of  the  penny  pile,  did  a  light- 
ning calculation  in  which  "twice  i  are  2"  and  "i  from  6  leaves 
nearly  6"  figured,  passed  to  the  spots  that  mellowed  the  other 
pile,  and  fell. 

"Spotted,"  he  said,  almost  inaudible. 

"Cold  or  'ot?"  went  on  the  barman,  now  warming  to  his 
work. 

"Hot,"  said  Jemmy,  moving  uneasily  from  one  foot  to  an- 
other on  the  high  stool  upon  which  he  crouched  monkey-like 
under  the  counter. 

"With  cruet  or  without?"  continued  the  affable  gentleman 
behind  the  counter,  now  really  enthusiastic,  his  arms  akimbo. 

Jemmy  made  a  final  effort  at  gentlemanly  control  just  as  the 
scent  of  the  hot  pudding  caught  his  nostrils,  forgot  himself, 
and  broke  down  desperately: 

"Oh  gi'me  the  pudding.  I  don't  care  how  it  is.  I'm  hun- 
gry." 

The  man  of  quick  decisions  saw  it  was  no  case  for  parley, 
drove  his  spoon  into  the  heart  of  the  smoking  heap,  slapped  it 
on  a  plate  and  the  plate  before  the  customer.  Jemmy,  perched 
on  the  high  stool,  his  coat  tails  shamelessly  exposing  the  loz- 
enge patch,  ate.  The  hat  gradually  worked  itself  off  the  fore- 


22  GODS 

head  that  looked  as  though  it  had  been  beaten,  the  head  shrink- 
ing into  one  great  maw  down  which  the  pudding  was  pushed. 
The  lady,  half  out  of  her  envelope,  lay  indifferently  under  the 
counter  in  virtuous  abandonment,  the  bag  gaped  unheeding. 
James  Fontaine  was  only  a  mouth  and  a  stomach. 

Out  again  into  that  terrible  sun — but  now  with  hope  and 
waistcoat  distended.  Still  the  sun  beat  fiercely,  mercilessly, 
on  his  rusty  hat,  parching  his  throat,  sapping  his  strength,  and 
making  him,  at  the  length  of  the  street,  falter  again.  The 
pavements  were  his  tormentors  and  he  thought  vaguely  about 
hell. 

As  he  tramped  up  one  street  and  down  the  next,  the  hat 
lolled  itself  over  one  ear,  the  glazed  bag  sagging  at  a  derelict 
angle,  and  the  enlarged  lady  going  down  by  the  head.  But 
still  he  set  his  face  towards  the  Unknown  Goal,  the  eyes  dim 
but  unfaltering,  upheld  by  that  dogged,  invincible,  little-huck- 
ster's faith  in  something  he  knew  not  what.  As  he  plodded  on 
the  feet  through  which  the  pavements  stabbed  like  glowing 
coals,  there  came  to  him,  as  was  the  way,  the  texts  he  had 
learned  from  his  pushing,  religious,  Cockney  father  .  .  .  "put- 
ting your  hand  to  the  plough,"  and  "enduring  to  the  end,"  but 
through  it  all  there  recurred,  irrelevant,  the  verse  of  the  morn- 
ing: "Not  one  sparrow  shall  fall  to  the  ground.  .  .  ."  "Not 
one  sparrow  .  .  .  not  one.  .  .  "  It  repeated  itself  mechani- 
cally But  it  was  all  so  confused.  Even  Fortune  seemed  very 
far  away.  Heaven  and  hell  were  the  only  definitenesses. 

The  feet  dragged  away  down  the  length  of  the  streets  that 
stretched  themselves  into  the  far  away,  the  rusty  hat  setting 
itself  towards  the  westering  sun  now  flooding  them  with  golden 
dust.  But  still  the  feet,  the  picture,  and  the  bag  went  on  as 
the  shadows  began  to  steal  out — down  the  length  of  the  streets 
to  be  lost  in  the  forgetfulness  of  the  evening. 

Not  one  sparrow  .  .  .  not  one  sparrow  .  .  .  not  one.  .  .  . 


IV 

BLOOD  AND  FIRE 

THERE  was  a  nudity  about  the  erection  that  was  shocking. 
It  stood  there,  galvanised,  utilitarian,  stark.  About  the  lofty 
barnlike  doors  which  gaped  for  the  masses  that  streamed 
within,  there  was  something  as  uncompromising  as  Moloch. 
Ominous  under  the  setting  sun,  it  loomed  gigantic  from  the 
waste  of  rubble  about  it,  the  high  fagades  of  the  houses  that 
framed  it  casting  their  shadows  to  its  base  and  over  its  roof. 
The  two  gas-flares  that  hung  above  wasted  themselves  palely 
against  the  ruddy  sky. 

The  vulgar  called  it  the  Tin  Tabernacle. 

Finn  was  sucked  with  the  rest  into  the  maw  of  the  place, 
which,  under  the  infrequent  electric  pears,  each  hanging  nak- 
edly on  its  filament,  spread  vastly  into  the  side  aisles,  whilst 
in  the  distance,  where  a  solitary  light  glimmered,  could  be 
sensed  a  hollow  of  seats  that  yawned  to  the  roof — before  them 
a  square  roped  stage  with  something  hanging  darkly  over  it. 

From  where  they  sat  in  the  middle  front,  Finn  looked  back 
over  the  seats  to  the  red  sky  that  poured  through  the  doors  in 
a  bloody  mist,  turning  the  lines  of  red-clothed  seats  into  slaugh- 
ter benches.  Father  Lestrange  had  also  turned,  the  red  light 
playing,  as  Finn  always  saw  it  play  in  his  dreams,  on  the  dark 
face  which  gazed  out  over  the  people  through  the  doors.  His 
father  and  aunts  were  crouched  over  the  leaflets  with  which 
the  benches  were  strewn.  His  mother  looked  superior.  As  he 
glanced  at  her,  that  prickly  heat  of  unreasoning  irritation  over- 
whelmed him.  It  made  him  ashamed  of  himself. 

The  cavern  of  a  place  echoed  to  the  low  thunder  of  the  boots 
upon  the  boarded  floor,  as  though  they  had  been  the  hoofs  of 
driven  cattle.  Shadows  were  moving  up  there  on  the  semi- 
circle of  seats.  As  the  place  filled  and  the  light  died  from  the 
sky,  the  thunder  had  fallen  into  the  tapping  of  the  last  arrivals, 

23 


24  GODS 

until  even  this  had  ceased.  The  great  doors  clanged.  The  iron 
maw  was  full. 

Out  of  the  opacity  about  them  there  came  a  whispering  like 
the  rustling  of  leaves,  the  faces  showing  pallid  under  the  half 
lights.  Something  moved  on  the  square  of  the  high  staging. 
The  whispering  had  died  away.  There  was  a  silence  scarcely 
to  be  endured. 

A  trumpet  note  rang  out.  The  faces  strained  upwards  as 
though  it  had  been  the  blast  of  Gabriel.  They  might  have  been 
rising  from  their  graves. 

A  flash  of  light  struck  blinding  upon  the  high  sacrificial 
stage  with  its  scarlet  pillars  and  white  ropes.  A  thin  high- 
shouldered,  uniformed  figure  stood  there  alone. 

There  was  something  bird-like  in  the  close-set  eyes,  in  the 
nose  that  hooked  itself  from  between  them,  in  the  grip  of  the 
hands  that  clawed  the  ropes.  But  there  was  something  pro- 
phetic too  in  the  sweep  of  the  long  white  beard  and  the  hair 
that  tumbled  itself  back  in  snowy  masses  over  the  skull  ridge 
and  behind  the  long  flat  ears. 

The  figure  stood  unmoved  under  the  broad  band  of  white 
linen  that  stretched  from  wall  to  wall,  on  it  in  letters  of  scarlet: 
"BLOOD  AND  FIRE." 

It  stood  unmoved  as  the  growl  of  drum  from  the  massed 
bands  under  its  feet  rose  steadily  into  a  thund'rous  crescendo 
that  swung  from  iron  wall  to  iron  wall  as  though  giants  were 
playing  at  bowls  up  there  on  the  roof,  punctuated  by  the  thin 
artillery  of  tambourine  from  the  background  of  poke  bonnets 
that  filled  the  concave  behind.  The  long  thin  hand  had  lifted, 
pointing  to  the  inscription  above,  until  the  last  reverberation 
had  died  away  under  the  iron  roof. 

"To  the  glory  of  God!     Blood  and  Fire!" 

The  voice,  in  it  something  thin  and  high-shouldered,  pierced 
the  silence. 

And  once  more.  .  .  . 

"To  the  glory  of  God!" 

The  hand  had  fallen,  and  with  it  the  darkness.  A  single 
beam  of  light  had  slanted  across  the  heads  of  the  multitude 
against  the  white  screen  with  the  black  lettering: 

THE   GLORY   SONG. 

From  the  darkness  behind,  a  soprano  stole  its  way,  sweetly, 


BLOOD  AND  FIRE  25 

assuredly,  into  the  farthest  corners  of  the  building.  There  was 
a  moment  of  silence,  and  now  the  invisible  singer  was  singing 
the  refrain  that  echoed  in  straining  sweetness: 

Oh  that  will  be, 

Glory  for  me. 
Oh  that  will  be, 

Glory  for  me. 

When  by  His  grace,  I  shall  look  on  His  face, 
That  will  be  glory,  be  glory  for  me! 

There  came  a  trembling  in  the  air,  that  trembling  which 
Finn  had  once  felt  at  the  Elevation  of  the  Host  in  the  Catholic 
chapel  into  which  he  had  one  day  ventured  at  Westminster. 
The  Tabernacle  had  thrilled  as  though  some  living  Presence 
were  passing.  A  moment,  and  the  low  thunder  of  ten  thousand 
throats  followed,  rising  higher,  ever  higher,  until  they  drowned 
the  clang  of  brass  and  roll  of  drum  which  had  now  joined  in. 

There  was  a  terror  about  this  massed  singing  that  sent  the 
music  stealing  through  his  veins  like  liquid  fire.  Then  he  dis- 
covered that  he  too  was  singing: 

Oh  that  will  be, 

Glory  for  me. 
Oh  that  will  be, 

Glory  for  me. 


That  will  be  glory,  be  glory  for  me! 

He  was  borne  upwards  and  outwards  upon  the  gigantic 
egotism  of  the  song  into  something  that  had  in  it  nothing  of 
self.  To  him,  as  perhaps  to  those  others  about  him,  there  came 
the  desire  to  save  the  world — that  desire  which  sometimes  came 
to  him  as  an  expansion  of  spirit,  a  turning  outwards  of  self  to 
envelop  the  world — an  insensate  desire  to  love  all  people  and 
all  things,  even  evil  itself.  It  shone  in  the  liquid-grey  of  his 
father's  eyes,  which,  as  the  lights  once  more  flared  out,  stared 
awed  at  the  figure  inside  the  ropes;  in  the  blackness  of  the 
eyes  of  his  Aunt  Bella  who,  if  she  could  not  save  the  world, 
would  destroy  it  by  that  blood  and  fire  of  which  they  had  been 
singing.  It  shone  in  the  eyes  of  those  about  him — a  dim  reach- 
ing out  to  an  unknown  goal — as  unconscious  as  instinct,  but  as 
deep. 

Perhaps  the  world  was  divided  into  the  people  with  the  desire 
— that  was  the  "Propagandists" — and  the  "Indifferents."  It 


26  GODS 

was  the  thing  that  united  Father  Lestrange,  Mrs.  Titterling, 
Aunt  Bella,  and  the  General.  Even  his  mother,  because  of 
that  desire,  seemed  to  take  a  lesser  rigidity. 

.  Only  the  Jesuit  sat  unmoved,  the  lofty  forehead  holding 
itself  remote  from  everything  there.  There  were  moments  in 
which  Finn  almost  hated  the  priest.  This  was  one  of  them. 

The  boy's  eye,  searching  the  spaces  about  him,  stopped  as 
he  listened  to  the  General,  who  was  now  reading  out  a  list  of 
subscriptions  from  a  paper  which  he  held : 

"Samuel  B.   Hodge,   Esquire — £500. 

"The  Right  Honourable  Lord  Kilmainham— £250." 

("God  be  praised!"  in  a  deep  bass  from  one  of  the  side 
aisles.) 

Finn,  looking  for  the  voice,  found  instead  a  face  known  to 
half  the  world  in  general  and  himself  in  particular,  where  its 
owner  sat  just  inside  the  whited  circle  of  the  arc-lights,  behind 
it,  the  hall  in  deep  shadow.  The  skull  sloping  thinly  to  the 
nape  of  the  neck,  showed  anatomised  under  its  yellow  hair- 
less pelt  as  though  it  were  the  skull  of  a  mummy,  the  ears 
pitting  themselves  deep,  the  forehead  high  and  swelling.  The 
rat-trap  jaw  under  that  dome  showed  small  but  set  to  ear 
and  neck  as  though  it  were  metalled  and  fitted  by  a  surgeon, 
matching  the  big  acquisitive  mouth  filled  with  artificial  teeth. 
The  nose,  deep-based,  ran  short  and  sheer  down  the  face  and 
broke  off  cancerously  above  the  long  bulbous  upper  lip  like  the 
nose  of  the  statue  of  a  Roman  boxer  Finn  had  seen  at  the 
British  Museum.  The  eyes  of  stone  were  those  of  the  statue. 

"John  L.  Crux— £5,000." 

The  poke  bonnets  had  sprung  into  life — the  concavity  had 
become  a  frenzy  of  white  handkerchief,  and  then  the  tambour- 
ines had  sent  out  spray  on  spray  of  sound  like  the  breaking  of 
glass,  above  the  undertow  of  the  big  drum,  through  which  cut 
the  shrill  of  female  voices: 

"Hallelujah!" 

"Glory,  glory!" 

And  then  the  bass: 

"Glory  to  God!     John  L.  Crux,  Unlimited!" 

It  was  the  popular  title  of  the  great  money  machine  in 
which  Finn  was  an  unconsidered  cog.  The  machine  man  him- 


BLOOD  AND  FIRE  27 

self  sat  there  before  him  without  the  flicker  of  an  eyelid — by 
his  side,  the  lank  spade  jaw  of  his  son  Parker,  smooth-faced 
and  groomed  to  the  last  hair.  But  Parker's  eye  flickered  with 
satisfaction.  "John  L.  Crux,  Unlimited — £5,000."  A  thin 
tongue  moistened  furtively  the  thinner  lips. 

Finn  knew  that  the  Tabernacle's  revival  meetings  were  fre- 
quented by  statesmen  and  bishops,  artists  and  men  of  the 
world,  someone  even  had  said,  by  royalty — the  General  at  any 
rate  had  once  been  invited  to  the  Palace  and  had  rewarded  his 
host  by  praying  for  him — but  he  had  not  expected  to  see  the 
man  of  millions.  Yet  he  knew  that  John  L.  Crux  in  his  own 
way  was  fanatic,  with  perhaps  a  heaven  as  narrow  and  a  hell 
as  capacious  as  those  of  General  Bliss.  But  the  American 
never  showed  himself  to  the  public,  to  whom  he  was  more  a 
name  than  a  person.  "John  L.  Crux,  Unlimited,"  as  he  and 
his  business  were  known  to  the  world. 

By  now  the  General,  like  the  enthusiasm,  had  come  down  to 
the  half  guineas.  He  stopped. 

This  man  knew  the  use  of  the  silence.  Every  eye  slewed 
once  more  to  the  roped  platform. 

"We  are  going  to  have  a  round  with  the  Devil  to-night,  com- 
rades. The  Cross  is  our  symbol.  A  symbol  of  power.  And 
in  that  sign  shall  we  triumph." 

This  anyhow  was  the  veriest  blatancy — the  claptrap  of  fan- 
aticism. Many  there,  like  Finn  himself,  breathed  the  freer  for 
it,  shaking  themselves  from  the  miasma  rising  about  them. 
This,  at  any  rate,  ought  to  be  resultless. 

But  it  wasn't.  They  might  call  it  nonsense.  But  it  did  not 
feel  like  nonsense.  There  was  something  behind  that  made 
them  uneasy — weighted  it. 

"Our  champion  is  here — the  man  who  has  fought  for  the 
devil  in  many  a  roped  square  is  going  to  knock  him  out  to- 
night. A  fight  to  a  finish." 

"To-night  is  challenge  night.  You  know  the  terms  of  the 
challenge — they  are  printed  on  your  leaflets — they  stood  in 
the  advertisement  columns  of  the  press  to-day.  Anyone  can 
accept  the  challenge — prince  or  pauper — bishop  or  atheist— » 
five  minutes  and  five  minutes'  reply.  Or,  as  Billy  Pickles 
would  say — five  minute  rounds.  Or,  if  you  like,  blow  for 
blow — question  and  answer.  The  Lord  is  on  our  side!"  The 
eyes  twinkled  a  moment,  then  set. 


28  GODS 

"Hell  Fire  Billy!" 

The  lights  beat  on  the  white  ropes  as  a  high  sinewy  man, 
of  immense  shoulder-spread,  in  a  loose-fitting  suit  of  tweed 
which  could  not  conceal  the  ripple  of  muscle  underneath,  ran 
along  the  floor  to  the  steps  leading  upwards,  and  sprang  loosely 
into  the  square. 

"Time!" 

The  kit-bag  mouth  had  opened,  its  owner,  now  alone  on  the 
white  canvassed  staging,  falling  into  the  attitude  that  seemed 
as  natural  to  him  as  breathing,  the  right  arm  resting  loosely 
across  the  arch  of  the  ribs,  the  left  sparring  easily  at  its  au- 
dience and  ready  for  anything.  The  ex-heavyweight  champion 
of  the  world  had  no  head  or  face  worth  talking  about,  but  one 
did  not  think  of  that  when  one  looked  at  the  lines  of  the 
figure — a  living  pedestal  for  the  mouth  above.  Finn  could 
only  see  that  mouth.  It  engulfed  all  else. 

And  now  the  figure  stood  motionless  against  the  ropes,  the 
mouth  had  opened  four  square  and  had  begun  to  speak,  quick, 
low.  The  words  rattled  out  as  though  the  mouth  had  been  a 
dice-box,  tumbling  over  one  another  but  with  a  syllabic  clarity 
surprising.  As  volume  and  tempo  grew,  there  was  a  metallic 
clang  in  them  as  if  they  had  been  weighted,  the  head  began 
to  move  pivot-like  upon  the  shoulder  base  as  though  it  were 
working  like  a  nodding  Chinese  mandarin  in  porcelain,  the 
apish  arms  began  to  jerk  themselves  independently  of  the 
trunk,  and  as  the  sentences  came  hurtling  through  the  mega- 
phone of  the  throat,  the  legs  began  to  move  from  the  hips  like 
those  of  a  Jumping  Jack  as  though  the  man  were  galvanised. 
The  thin  black  line  of  reporters  at  their  trestle  table  at  the 
side  hunched  themselves  to  their  task,  but  vainly.  Still  the 
terrible  stream  poured  out  through  the  square  of  the  lips  as 
though  they  came  from  a  hose,  and  still  the  penmen  staggered 
after,  whilst  the  people  listened  as  though  their  immortal  souls 
were  in  the  balance. 

And  now  the  higb  figure  was  lurching  around  the  stage,  the 
left  foot  forward,  the  right  obediently  trailing  after,  the  piston 
arms  shooting  forward  at  his  Invisible  Antagonist,  ever  and 
anon  the  body  setting  itself  for  that  one-time  dreaded  left  hook 
which  had  so  often,  in  Billy's  own  words,  "brought  the  bacon 
home,"  and  with  it  artists  and  poets,  statesmen  and  muscular 


BLOOD  AND  FIRE  29 

Christianity  to  see  him  deliver  it  upon  an  adversary  of  flesh 
and  blood. 

The  big  man  lurched  from  side  to  side  as  though  possessed 
of  the  very  devil  he  was  supposed  to  be  fighting,  all  the  time 
a  stream  of  words,  torrential,  which  might  have  been  blessings 
or  blasphemies  or  both,  pouring  from  his  lips,  whilst  the  poke 
bonnets  behind  and  the  blue  and  red  uniform  caps  in  front 
shrieked  and  hallelujahed  in  the  retchings  of  the  spirit.  The 
voice  megaphoned  itself  higher  and  higher — checked — and  then 
the  mouth  had  dived  through  the  r6pes,  a  hairy  claw  had 
reached  downwards  to  the  floor  and  had  picked  up  a  chair  as 
though  it  had  been  a  stick,  brought  it  upwards,  splintered  it 
on  the  white  canvas,  lurched  for  another,  and  now  the  speaker, 
standing  on  both,  the  hands  on  either  side  of  the  great  mouth, 
as  though  he  would  span  the  universal  dome  of  the  heaven 
above,  was  trumpeting  his  peroration  of  Goddom  and  Devildom 
in  a  voice  rasping  and  changed  as  though  the  spirit  inside  were 
speaking  through  his  throat.  "Blood  and  Fire!"  he  screamed. 
"Who's  for  Heaven?  Blood  and  Fire!  and  God  damn  the 
Devil!  Blood  and  Fire!" 

The  figure  had  collapsed  on  to  one  of  the  chairs  as  though 
in  a  fit,  the  eyes  that  had  almost  vanished,  now  staring;  the 
limbs  relaxed;  the  mouth  loose,  slavering. 

A  moment's  silence,  and  then  the  thunder  of  drum  and  tinkle 
of  tambourine  mingled  with  the  shouts  of  the  faithful  and  the 
groans  of  the  unfaithful. 

"Who's  for  heaven?     Blood  and  Fire!" 

It  was  the  high  thin  voice  of  the  General  once  more  domi- 
nating from  the  platform  and  compelling  silence. 

"Who's  for  heaven?" 

The  place  was  very  still.     Even  the  groaning  had  ceased. 

"Who's  for  heaven?" 

There  fell  again  that  trembling  in  the  air. 

A  figure  broke  itself  frailly  from  one  of  the  side-aisles.  It 
swayed  brokenly  in  the  silence  as  it  made  its  way  towards  the 
long  bare  form  that  ran  from  wall  to  wall.  As  it  came  into  the 
lighted  circle,  Finn  saw  the  lights  beat  on  the  face  of  a  young 
girl,  in  it  something  of  wonderment,  of  revelation.  No  flower 
of  sin  this,  but  a  girl  of  the  middle-classes,  sheltered  and  re- 
fined, the  grey  eyes  slightly  opening  under  the  white  sailor 
hat  that  slanted  a  little  backwards  on  the  finely  compact  head. 


30  GODS 

As  she  sank  by  the  form,  it  was  as  though  something  had 
passed  through  the  surcharged  atmosphere,  discharging  its  elec- 
tricity. And  now  from  every  side  the  people  like  drunken  men 
lurched  up  the  aisles  to  cast  themselves  upon  the  hard  boards, 
sinking  their  heads  between  their  hands,  their  shoulders  mov- 
ing convulsively,  as  though  they  too  were  possessed.  The  great 
building  was  emotional  with  the  waves  that  billowed  through 
it — wave  on  wave — submerging  opposition.  Finn  felt  desire 
uncontrollable,  despite  his  unbelief,  to  fling  himself  down  there 
with  the  rest,  throwing  himself  upon  the  lethal  bosom  of  faith, 
to  be  carried  on  the  roll  of  drum  and  the  shouting  of  the  multi- 
tude into  something,  he  knew  not  what. 

"Mr.  Pickles!" 

A  voice  like  a  silver  trumpet  found  its  way  through  the 
frenzy  of  the  place,  which  hushed  itself  into  silent  listening. 

"Mr.  Pickles!" 

And  now  Finn  could  see  the  very  tall  young  man,  inclined 
to  corpulency,  where  he  bulked  a  little  to  the  right  and  in 
front  of  him,  standing  under  the  arc-glare  addressing  the  man 
with  the  mouth,  who  had  come  to  himself  and  was  once  more 
alone  on  the  platform.  There  was  something  exceeding  court- 
eous about  this  tall  young  man  in  the  tight-fitting  frock-coat 
with  the  velvet  collar,  a  corner  of  laced  cambric  showing  from 
the  pocket.  As  he  moved  his  head  a  trifle  away,  Finn  caught 
the  sheer  fine-formed  nose,  with  something  pinched  and  thor- 
oughbred about  the  nostrils,  the  dark  eye,  prominent,  voluptu- 
ous, with  heavy  drooping  eyelid,  set  squarely  in  the  head,  the 
high  smooth  forehead  with  the  curling  brown-black  hair  that, 
as  he  moved,  took  a  tone  of  red.  The  mouth  was  small,  al- 
most tiny,  the  Cupid's  bow  of  the  lips  thick  and  red.  Despite 
the  olive  smoothness  of  his  face,  there  was  something  about  this 
man  that  might  have  been  Assyrian. 

"Mr.  Pickles!" 

The  tone  was  curiously  considerate,  but  the  face  of  the  man 
in  the  ropes  showed  hostile  as  it  searched  for  the  voice.  Al- 
ready there  was  a  wavering  at  the  penitent  form,  and  one  or 
two  figures  slunk  shamefacedly  back  across  the  lighted  circle. 
The  tremblement  had  passed. 

And  now  Pickles  had  found  him. 

"Name!"  the  big  mouth  megaphoned.  It  was  a  trick  which 
in  one  form  or  another  had  never  failed  a  man  who  in  the  ring 


BLOOD  AND  FIRE  31 

had  been  a  master  of  intimidation  and  who  now  used  it  for  the 
salvation  of  souls. 

"I  should  say  Lucifer,  Son  of  the  Morning,  were  it  not 
blasphemous,"  replied  the  tall  man  quietly.  "But  I  am  only 
his  servant.  My  father  called  me  Paris  Asthar,"  he  continued. 

Every  eye  was  staring,  avid,  at  the  young  aristocrat  who 
was  the  sensation  of  the  daily  paper,  the  scandal  of  London, 
and  the  darling  of  its  gods.  Paris  Asthar,  son  of  old  Asthar, 
eccentric  and  Irishman.  That  was  something  worth  looking 
at  anyhow.  The  penitent  form  was  forgotten. 

"Well?"    The  mouth  was  uncompromising. 

"Quite,  thank  you."  Somebody  giggled.  But  the  face  of 
the  man  with  the  orchid  was  immovable. 

"I  mean  wot-cher-want?"  came  nasally. 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon.    I  must  have  misunderstood  you." 

"And  I  say — wot-cher-want?"  and  then,  after  a  moment,  the 
big  mouth  opening,  sardonic.  .  .  .  "Lucifer." 

Paris  Asthar  bowed.  "You  do  me  too  much  honour,"  he 
said. 

Something  stirred  a  chord  of  memory  in  the  listening  boy. 
Then  he  remembered.  Father  Lestrange  had  said  the  same  to 
his  Aunt  Bella.  But  this  man  was  not  Father  Lestrange.  Yet 
there  was  something.  .  .  . 

But  the  man  with  the  orchid  was  speaking. 

"It  is  because  you  so  obviously  misunderstand  the  nature 
and  mission  of  the  poor  Devil  that  I  venture  to  put  in  a  word 
for  him  to-night.  In  the  first  place,  you  speak  of  his  Majesty, 
Mr.  Pickles,  as  though  he  were  the  only  devil  in  the  world — 
but  this  world,  like  other  worlds,  is  full  of  devils,  some  of  them 
devilishly  improper  and  impossible,  who  play  the  very  deuce 
with  your  existence  as  with  mine,  but  some  of  them  perfectly 
proper  and  very  possible.  ..." 

Finn  noticed  that  the  penitent  form  was  emptying,  some  of 
those  still  at  the  form  twisting  half  round  to  listen  to  the  man 
who  was  speaking.  As  his  eye  ran  along  the  crimson  of  the 
seats,  he  caught  sight  of  a  man  who,  sitting  a  few  places  on 
the  other  side  of  his  father,  with  his  curiously  bright  grey  eye 
and  a  beard  in  which  the  fine  snow  had  sifted  itself  through 
the  hairs,  might  have  been  his  father's  elder  brother,  but  a 
brother  of  a  superior  sort.  He  was  rapidly  making  shorthand 
notes  in  a  lined  book  bound  with  leather  and  had  been  doing 


32  GODS 

so  all  the  evening.  Every  now  and  then  he  would  look  up  at 
the  platform  with  that  expanding  of  the  eye  which  had  first 
caught  Finn's  attention. 

There  was  something  about  the  man,  something  friendly  and 
natural,  that  made  the  boy's  heart  go  out  to  him  in  the  un- 
reasoning way  that  it  had.  For  a  moment  he  wished  that 
that  had  been  his  father  .  .  .  and  then  his  conscience  smote 
him.  He  loved  his  father  in  a  pitying  sort  of  way. 

"That,"  said  Father  Lestrange,  replying  to  the  boy's  ques- 
tion, "that  is  Lanthorn,  editor  of  the  review  that  bears  his 
name.  He  is  a  seer  of  visions  and  a  dreamer  of  dreams.  He 
is  known  as  the  prince  of  journalists,  although  Paris  Asthar — 
who  christens  everybody — has  christened  him  the  Prince  of 
Darkness  because  of  his  spiritualistic  experiments. 

So  that  was  Lanthorn,  the  spiritualist,  the  man  who  had  in- 
terviewed the  uninterviewable,  including  the  Russian  Czar, 
whom  he  was  said  to  have  converted.  And  there  was  some- 
thing else  about  him — Finn  blushed  in  the  way  that  he  had  as 
there  came  to  him  the  misty  memory  of  a  dreadful  case  in 
which  Lanthorn,  "seeking  copy"  his  enemies  said,  had  pro- 
cured evidence  of  the  traffic  in  children  and  had  served  six 
months  for  a  technical  assault  upon  Mrs.  Grundy,  editing  "The 
Lanthorn"  from  his  cell. 

".  .  .  in  fact  I  have  no  doubt,  Mr.  Pickles,  if  you  will  per- 
mit me  to  say  so  without  offence,  that  I  am  a  better  Christian 
than  you,  showing  as  I  do  that  charity  which  is  the  very 
foundation  of  Christianity  even  to  the  Master  of  Evil  himself. 
Advocatus  Diaboli — Advocatus  Dei.  It  is  so  easy  to  be  charit- 
able to  the  really  good.  .  .  ." 

It  was  the  voice  of  Paris  Asthar  coming  through  the  diminu- 
tive mouth  as  through  a  tiny  silver  trumpet.  The  big  man  in- 
side the  ropes,  now  gripping  them  in  his  big  sinewy  hands, 
had  a  look  as  though  he  were  behind  bars. 

"Another  little  misapprehension,  which  indeed  is  shared  by 
the  members  of  the  seventy-three  sects  which  compose  that 
branch  of  the  Church  to  which  you  belong.  ..." 

"I  belong  to  the  Church  of  Christ — to  the  universal  church 
of  Christ  throughout  the  world.  I  am  a  member  of  all  Chris- 
tian churches!"  The  voice  came  strident  from  the  high  plat- 
form, angry,  seeking  assurance. 

"Including  the  Church  of  Rome?"  inserted  Asthar  with  that 


BLOOD  AND  FIRE  33 

suavity  of  manner  which  seemed  to  irritate  the  big  man  into 
rawness. 

"That  is  the  Scarlet  Woman,"  replied  Pickles. 

"Then  you  are  not  a  member  of  all  the  Christian  churches,'* 
went  on  Asthar,  unmoved.  "But  as  I  was  saying  before  this 
little  digression,  another  of  your  misapprehensions  is  that 
Lucifer  uses  evil  because  he  likes  it  from — er — what  shall  we 
say? — sheer  devilry." 

"He  is  the  Father  of  Evil!"  said  the  big  man,  dogmatic. 

"Then  who  is  the  Father  of  good?" 

"God!"  said  the  big  man  with  angry  solemnity. 

"And  the  Father  of  all  things — living  and  dead?" 

"God!" 

"Then  God  is  the  father  of  your  Devil." 

"Blasphemy!"  said  the  big  man  in  a  voice  like  Caiaphas. 

"Not  blasphemy,  but  logic,  and  all  logic  is  blasphemic  be- 
cause it  annihilates  all  distinction.  There  is  no  good  or  evil. 
These  are  only  terms."  A  man  back  in  the  audience  laughed, 
and  checked  himself. 

Finn  could  see  the  sweat  beads  standing  on  the  big  man's 
forehead  like  frosted  dew  where  he  moved  his  face  under  the 
arcs.  He  was  very  pale  and  he  drew  his  breath  like  a  man  who 
had  been  running.  Finn  felt  quite  sorry  for  him,  but  forgot  his 
sorrow  in  his  admiration  for  that  breadth  of  shoulder. 

"To  return  to  our  misapprehensions.  Lucifer  was  once 
angel — your  bible  tells  you  that  as  I  think  it  tells  you  every- 
thing in  the  world  worth  knowing  ...  if  you  only  know  how 
to  read  it,"  he  added  after  a  moment  .  .  .  "but  the  God  he 
served  was  a  God  of  power — your  bible  tells  you  that  also — 
and  Lucifer  lusted,  as  he  had  the  right  to  lust,  for  the  only 
thing  in  the  universe  worth  having — for  Power.  But  power,  like 
all  other  things,  can  only  be  purchased  at  a  price — perhaps 
God  himself  paid  his  price  in  the  eternities  to  Another  before 
him — and  the  price  was  the  sacrifice  of  good — that  is,  of  god- 
ship." 

"Blasphemy!  blasphemy!"  came  the  thin  voice  of  the  Gen- 
eral like  that  of  an  angry  old  woman  from  under  the  platform 
at  the  side,  where  he  seemed  to  be  holding  a  watching  brief  on 
behalf  of  the  Almighty.  It  sounded  ridiculous  in  the  stillness 
of  the  place. 

"And  when  he  fell,  flung  by  a  greater  power  than  his  own, 


34  GODS 

fell  to  earth,  he  found  the  god  of  this  world— yes,  for  this 
world  has  its  own  gods  and  devils — using  the  weapon  of  his 
master — the  God  of  the  universe — good."  So  far  the  speaker 
had  been  speaking  with  a  sort  of  light  earnestness  of  his  own; 
now,  his  face  broke  into  the  smile  that  had  seduced  London— 
"...  and  so  there  was  only  evil  left  for  the  poor  devil.  When 
the  day  comes  that  he  has  conquered  good  with  evil,  he  will 
become  good."  He  was  serious  again. 

"The  battle  between  good  and  evil  is  not  eternal — even  you 
presuppose  its  ceasing  at  Doomsday — the  battle  is  not  for 
principle  but  for  power.  It  is  the  unceasing  battle  of  the  eter- 
nity of  our  little  world  as  it  is  the  battle  of  the  Universe  itself, 
with  the  gods  of  good  and  evil  fighting  on  either  side — fighting 
inside  on  the  hearthstone  of  each  heart  as  on  those  other  outer 
battlefields  of  gun  and  armour.  Even  now,  here,  the  fight  is 
going  on — just  as  outside  in  the  shadows  darkening  over 
Europe,  out  of  which  comes  the  glitter  of  weapon  and  the 
tamp  of  the  anvil  of  war,  preparation  is  being  made  for  that 
Armageddon  of  our  time  which  will  come  before  two  decades 
have  passed.  King  and  statesman — bishop  and  scientist — work- 
man and  little  bourgeois — they  are  all  protagonists  for  the 
gods  standing  behind,  and  when  the  armies  of  the  world  will 
have  gripped  in  the  physical  deathlock  of  the  war  to  come^ 
above  them,  the  angels  of  light  and  darkness,  of  what  we  call 
good  and  evil,  will  be  battling  with  the  weapons  of  the  spirit." 

"Time  up!"  said  the  big  man,  looking  on  his  antagonist  in 
pale  malignity.  "Sit  down!" 

The  man  to  whom  he  spoke  sat  down  with  an  inclination  of 
the  fine  head — only  now  the  face  was  smiling  steadfastly  at 
the  man  within  the  ropes,  whose  face  to  Finn  seemed  contracted 
as  though  he  were  in  pain.  The  big  mouth  opened  once  or 
twice  spasmodically  and  then  it  had  broken  into  the  first  line 
of  the  Glory  Song:  "Oh  that  will  be,  Glory  for  me.  .  .  ." 

A  woman  at  the  back  joined  in  piercingly  and  then  stopped, 
appalled  at  her  own  voice  in  the  unbroken  silence  .  .  .  and 
still  the  man  with  the  orchid  stared  upwards,  smiling. 

"All  together!"  said  the  big  man,  his  voice  straining. 

Here  and  there  a  voice  broke  in,  and  stopped.  There  was 
something  of  strangulation  in  the  atmosphere.  And  still  the 
man  in  the  frock-coat  smiled. 

The  man  up  there  on  the  platform  and  the  man  down  there 


BLOOD  AND  FIRE  35 

in  the  hall  seemed  to  be  grappling,  although  the  man  on  the 
platform  did  not  look  at  the  other.  His  eyes  searched  the 
building,  as  though  seeking  help.  His  mouth  opened  as  though 
he  were  trying  to  speak. 

But  the  spirit  of  chaos  seemed  to  have  entered  the  place. 

"Shut  up  Pickles!"  came  from  a  man  a  few  paces  from 
Finn. 

"Fairplay  for  the  gent!"  from  an  unshaven  Eastender  of 
protruding  jowl  who  sat  in  front  nursing  a  cold  pipe  in  the 
hollow  of  his  right  fist  as  he  crossed  one  knee  more  comfort- 
ably over  the  other  to  listen. 

"Will  you  let  me  speak.  ..."  It  seemed  that  the  man  on 
the  platform  had  been  trying  to  make  himself  heard  for  some 
time,  although  nobody  had  noticed  him  in  the  tumult  which 
had  been  rising  again. 

"I  will  speak,"  said  Pickles,  to  whom  a  meeting  of  this  sort 
was  a  new  experience. 

But  still  Paris  Asthar  smiled. 

"You  have  not  answered  me  yet,"  he  said. 

"Time's  up!"  bellowed  Pickles,  looking  over  Asthar's  head. 

He  still  searched  the  building  with  that  straining  look. 

"I  am  still  waiting  for  your  answer,"  came  from  Asthar. 

"Oh,  you —  "  Pickles  paused  for  a  moment,  then  plunged 
— "you  can  shut  your  face!"  He  licked  his  lips  as  though  he 
had  got  something  off  his  mind. 

"Order!  order!"  came  from  the  middle  of  the  hall. 

"There  is  no  time  to  take  each  one  separately.  I'll  take  the 
gentleman  on  my  left  who  I  think  has  been  trying  to  catch 
my  eyes  for  some  time  and  then" — the  eyes  set  viciously— 
"knock  you  out  one  by  one!" 

"Why  don't  you  answer  the  gent?" 

"He's  afride.    Ca-ward!" 

"Don't  answer.    Let's  have  the  Glory  Song!" 

"Go  on  Pickles— where's  your  bloody  left?" 

"Shut  up!.  .  .  ." 

"Oh  if  I'd  only  got  you  ahtside.  .  .  ." 

And  then,  shrill:     "Oh  that  will  be,  Glo-o-o-ry.  .  .  ." 

But  the  cries  increased  in  volume  as  the  tall  evangelist  stood 
there  like  a  baited  bull,  the  great  mouth  opening  itself  in  bel- 
lowings  that  went  unheard  under  the  rising  din.  One  could 
only  see  the  maw  opening  and  shutting  and  the  red  of  the 


36  GODS 

gums  as  the  white  light  struck  on  them  from  above.  His  arms 
were  moving — his  face  distorted. 

Voices  were  crossing  one  another.  Taunts  were  hurling  over 
the  floor  of  the  tabernacle.  The  poke  bonnets  at  the  back 
showed  a  tendency  to  lift  themselves.  And  now  the  conductor 
had  given  the  signal  and  the  massed  bands  added  to  the  tur- 
moil, the  eyes  of  the  bandsmen  straining  over  their  instruments. 

Two  men  were  fighting  at  the  back  of  the  hall;  there  was  a 
rush  against  the  doors  which  yielded  a  little,  held  and  then 
gave  way  .  .  .  and  then  the  mob  had  been  vomited  forth  into 
the  night,  filling  the  spaces  under  the  pale  stars  with  curses 
and  strange  cries,  as  though  devils  had  been  loosed. 


A   DAY   IN    THE    LIFE    OF    PARIS   ASTHAR 

OUT  of  the  velvety  blackness  came  the  ticking  of  a  clock 
that  sentinelled  the  time  with  hurried  footsteps.  From  where 
the  blackness  seemed  to  heap  itself  a  little  together  in  the 
corner,  there  came  a  regular  pulsation.  The  pregnant  air 
seemed  to  hold  within  it  something  living.  A  single  ray  of 
gold  stole  from  the  side  of  what  might  have  been  a  thickly 
curtained  window. 

A  triple  chime  shivered  through  the  room  like  the  breaking 
of  glass,  a  shadow  crossed  the  line  of  the  noiselessly  opened 
door,  there  was  a  click,  and  the  room  was  filled  with  a  golden 
smother  that  came  from  the  ledge  under  the  high  ceiling. 
It  merged  the  black  and  gold  of  the  walls,  pannelled  in  oak  to 
the  half  of  their  height,  with  the  deep  blue  of  the  thick  carpet 
and  of  the  curtains,  brushed  the  counterpane  of  quilted  silk 
where  the  line  of  fine  lawn  ran  across  it,  and  showed  under  the 
swell  of  the  canopy  of  blue  that  hung  above,  the  dark  hair 
which  in  that  light  was  touched  with  red  and  with  it  the  long 
lashes  and  olive  cheeks  of  Paris  Asthar. 

The  head  moved. 

"Is  that  you,  Togo?"  came  a  sleepy  voice. 

The  little  figure,  its  head  a  trifle  on  one  side,  moved  over  to 
the  bed  with  quick  stilted  strides  as  though  it  were  walking 
on  pins. 

"What  time  is  it,  Togo?"  The  big  man  yawned  and 
stretched  his  arms  above  his  head,  the  breast  of  his  silken 
pajamas  parting  to  show  the  great  hairless  body  beneath.  He 
looked  at  it  with  a  certain  complacency  and  passed  a  smooth 
white  hand  inside  the  fold  to  comfortably  stroke  himself. 
With  his  other  hand,  he  smoothed  the  down  of  an  Angora  cat 
which  had  sprung  like  a  grey-blue  ghost  upon  the  silk  of  the 
counterpane,  for  Paris  Asthar  had  a  passion  for  cats,  aristo- 

37 


38  GODS 

cratic  brutes,  beautifully  behaved  and  dainty  in  form  and  taste, 
which  had  the  run  of  the  place. 

"Three  o'clock,  sah." 

"We  must  give  up  these  late  hours,  Togo.  Three  o'clock 
last  night  and  dawn  the  morning  before."  Complacent,  he  con- 
tinued to  stroke  himself  as  the  little  man,  obediently  acquie- 
scent, inclined  his  head  and  went  out  of  the  room. 

The  scent  of  mocha  came  through  the  door  as  it  opened  to 
show  the  little  oriental  standing  there,  in  his  hand  a  deep- 
rimmed  shining  salver  upon  which  a  miniature  coffee  pot  of 
burnished  silver  stood  over  the  flame  of  evanescent  blue  which 
floated  upwards,  by  its  side  a  tiny  cup  and  saucer.  He  laid 
the  salver  upon  a  little  lacquer  table  at  the  side  of  the  bed 
and  went  to  the  first  of  the  three  high  windows,  half  drawing 
the  one-piece  curtain  that  ran  squarely  across.  He  switched 
off  some  of  the  lights. 

And  so,  as  he  went  from  window  to  window  and  extinguished 
the  last  light,  the  room  was  filled  with  the  afternoon  sun. 

He  returned  to  his  master,  crooking  a  paw  like  a  piece  of 
gnarled  oak  around  the  handle  of  the  coffee  pot  and  poured 
out  a  cup  of  the  shining  black  liquid  which,  having  sipped, 
Asthar  declared  to  the  smiling  Togo  that  ahe  now  felt  himself 
able  to  face  the  horridness  of  reality." 

After  his  bath,  Paris  Asthar  in  a  leopard  kimono  of  black 
and  yellow  that  gave  to  him  something  of  the  great  cat  itself, 
nibbled  (it  was  surprising  how  everything  turned  to  fat  in 
Paris)  some  brioches  and  looked  at  a  broiled  kidney.  The 
peaches  on  the  table  he  did  not  touch. 

As  he  rose,  he  caught  sight  of  himself  in  the  full-length  oval 
mirror  before  him  and  winced.  But  he  persuaded  himself  that 
the  bulge  above  the  loosely  drooping  knot  of  the  silken  waist- 
rope  was  kimono,  not  obesity.  He  contracted  himself  a  little. 

"Been  having  any  more  letters  from  fine  ladies,  Togo?"  he 
asked  the  grinning  oriental.  The  ugly  little  Japanese  seemed 
to  have  strange  fascination  for  Paris's  lady  friends. 

"No,  sah,"  piped  Togo.  "At  least,  not  since  the  last  from 
Mrs.  Swathe,  sah.  She  thinks  I'm  a  Buddhist,  sah."  Togo 
grinned  delightedly. 

"Beelzebub,"  said  Paris  solemnly,  taking  on  his  knee  the  big 
black  cat  with  the  absinthe  coloured  eyes  which  had  been  bask- 
ing in  the  sunlight  under  the  window,  "listen.  Beware  of 


A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  PARIS  ASTHAR  39 

Togo's  fine  ladies,  who  take  you  on  their  knees  and  tell  you 
that  you  are  beautiful.  Especially  beware  when  they  do  it  in 
the  name  of  religion,  for  which  even  your  distinguished  proto- 
type had  a  weakness.  Don't  let  them  seduce  you,  my  beauty." 

The  slant  eyes  of  the  brute  on  his  knee  seemed  to  stare  at 
him  with  understanding.  It  rolled  over  on  its  back  and  struck 
at  him  lazily  in  covert,  green-eyed  delight.  Togo  listened  as 
he  cleared  away. 

Having  placed  his  master  in  a  pair  of  exceedingly  well-cut 
grey-striped  trousers,  falling  over  a  pair  of  patents  upon  which 
M.  de  Guiche  of  varnish  fame  had  done  his  best,  held  for  him 
a  frock-coat  in  which  he  seemed  to  have  been  poured,  and 
handed  to  him  a  hat  of  glossiness  inconceivable,  Togo  finished 
his  work  by  producing  apparently  from  the  small  of  his  back 
an  ivory-topped  malacca  and  a  pair  of  gloves  of  grey  suede. 
Thus,  in  his  own  words,  "the  day  having  been  aired,"  you  can 
see  Paris  Asthar's  black  satin  tie  that  wound  itself  twice  around 
the  smoothness  of  the  collar,  and  great  emerald,  strolling,  non- 
chalant, past  the  House  of  Commons,  through  the  St.  James 
and  Green  parks  to  Hyde  Park  Corner,  where  their  owner, 
who  seemed  to  unfold  in  the  afternoon  sun  like  a  flower  in 
water,  cast  at  the  Row  the  eye  indifferent.  As  it  turned  away, 
it  caught  the  double-breasted  reefer  and  curling  beard  of  a  man 
who  was  passing  and  who  seemed  to  be  no  more  aware  that  it 
was  a  scorching  July  day  than  if  he  had  been  a  salamander. 

The  man  at  whom  he  was  looking,  the  man  with  the  honest 
doggy  eyes  of  brown  overshadowed  by  the  heavy  frontal  bones 
of  the  forehead  and  who  gave  the  onlooker  a  general  impres- 
sion of  shagginess,  was  Professor  Dust,  prince  of  science  and 
the  authority  on  trematodes,  that  parasitic  worm  which  lives 
in  the  intestines  of  animals,  and  of  which  a  familiar  speci- 
men is  the  human  tapeworm.  The  professor  was  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  living  biologists  and  had  not  only  writ- 
ten a  big  book  upon  trematodes  found  in  the  loggerhead  turtle 
but,  frankly,  regarded  the  universe  as  turning  upon  them.  Al- 
most the  only  orthodox  survivor  of  the  Darwinian  theory  id 
its  original  purity,  to  which  he  clung  as  to  a  biological  bible,  he 
regarded  Weismann  and  Archdall  Reid  as  terrible  heretics. 

"Hello  Professor!"  cried  Asthar.  "Just  the  man  I  wanted 
to  see.  That  talk  about  trem-trema-trematodes"  (he  had  got 
it  at  last)  "into  which  you  inveigled  me  the  other  day  inter- 


40  GODS 

ested  me  amazingly.  Let's  hear  some  more  about  your  wriggly 
worms/'  He  hooked  the  Professor  by  the  arm  and  marched 
him  down  Piccadilly. 

"...  yes,"  that  gentleman  said  with  a  certain  eager  shy- 
ness. "Trematodes,  my  dear  Asthar.  .  .  ." 

"Excuse  me,"  his  companion  broke  off  quickly,  unhooking, 
and  bowing  profoundly  to  a  young  girl  who  was  passing  in  a 
victoria  drawn  by  a  pair  of  high-stepping  blacks.  "My  half- 
sister,"  he  said. 

The  Professor,  already  mazed  in  his  trematodes,  had  a  vague 
impression  in  the  afternoon  sunlight  of  a  pair  of  hazel  eyes;  a 
cloud  of  tawny  hair  cut  to  the  neck;  a  slender  girlish  figure — 
and  it  was  gone. 

".  .  .  as  I  was  saying,  my  dear  Asthar  .  .  .  what  you  have 
always  to  bear  in  mind  regarding  trematodes.  ..." 

The  voice  gathered  weight  and  volume  as  they  passed  along, 
the  eyes  lighting  under  the  working  of  the  overhanging  brows, 
the  passers  by  catching"  .  .  .  pachypsolus  undulatus,  my  dear 
Sir;"  with  the  recurrent  refrain:  "caretta,  caretta.  .  .  ."  and 
then  "...  of  vital  import  to  the  whole  future  of  biological  in- 
vestigation— I  might  say,  to  the  race  itself.  If  you  would  only 
give  that  splendid  brain  of  yours  to  the  study  of  trematodes 
instead  of  to  dying  religions  ...  to  ghosts  .  .  .  ghosts.  ..." 
The  Professor  laughed  indignantly.  He  gesticulated  with  the 
free  arm,  finally  breaking  the  other  out  and  using  that  also  in 
his  indignant  accentuation 

Asthar  stopped  him  for  a  moment  to  feel  for  a  shilling,  which 
he  gave  to  one  of  those  white-faced  women  who  live  by  sham- 
ing the  civilisation  that  is  Piccadilly's.  "Excuse  me,  Profes- 
sor," he  said  .  .  .  "and  as  you  were  saying.  .  .  ." 

The  torrential  "caretta,  caretta"  continued,  the  shaggy  arm 
waved  the  length  of  Piccadilly,  Asthar's  figure  gracefully  bulk- 
ing over  his  squat  friend,  until,  as  they  came  to  the  turning 
beyond  Devonshire  House,  the  big  man  graciously  disengaged 
himself  from  the  scientist  and  floated  up  the  steps  of  a  build- 
ing over  the  fanlight  of  which  stood:  "Esoteric  Club."  Two 
young  men  were  looking  at  him  from  one  of  the  side  windows, 
Asthar  knew  it. 

As  he  came  to  the  door,  he  stopped  suddenly.  And  it  was 
curious  to  see  how  his  expression  changed. 

A  very  young  girl  was  standing  there  on  the  squares  of  black 


A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  PARIS  ASTHAR  41 

and  white  marble  which  formed  the  floor  of  the  hall,  her  left 
hand  resting  lightly  upon  the  turn  of  the  balustrade,  looking 
slenderly  upwards  towards  where  the  staircase  turned  past  the 
stained  glass  window  that  threw  its  gold  and  blue  upon  the 
marble.  The  sunlight  streamed  down  upon  the  aureole  of 
tawn,  cut  to  the  base  of  the  young  firm  neck  where  it  came 
up  clean  from  the  hollow  of  the  dress  of  Irish  green,  looking  as 
though  it  had  been  strewn  with  gold-dust.  The  rather  short, 
strong  nose,  in  profile,  the  eyes  placed  fair  under  the  delicate 
brows,  the  strong  lines  of  the  red  lips  where  they  parted  over 
the  thinner  line  of  ivory — all  looked  upwards  expectant.  The 
face,  with  something  hollow-cheeked,  hollow-eyed,  might  have 
been  that  of  the  first  woman. 

The  head  turned  quickly,  the  lips  closing,  as  though  the 
girl  had  felt  something.  The  languorous  figure  tautened.  The 
hazel  eyes  with  the  dark  shadows  in  them  smiled  on  the  big 
man. 

"The  annunciation,"  he  said  almost  tenderly,  as  he  went  for- 
ward and  kissed  his  half-sister  on  the  forehead  which  she  bent 
to  him. 

Relieved  of  his  hat,  cane  and  gloves  by  the  discreetly  whis- 
kered attendant  in  the  uniform  of  solemn  black,  Asthar  was 
crossing  the  hall  with  his  half-sister,  when  a  figure,  appearing 
from  a  room  at  the  side,  half  limped  half  twisted  itself  across 
the  marble  chessboard,  now  checkered  by  the  afternoon  sun, 
and  then,  turning  at  his  "Hullo,  Stella!"  sidled  up  to  him.  As 
he  did  so,  Deirdre  Asthar,  with  an  impulsive  gesture,  so  faint 
as  almost  to  be  imperceptible,  suddenly  broke  from  him  and 
disappeared. 

She  was  a  girl  of  the  early  twenties,  her  hair  of  burnished 
copper,  coiled  low  on  the  neck  of  soft-fairness,  catching  the 
sun-rays  through  the  open  door.  The  graceful  whip-like  body, 
graceful  for  all  its  high  unevenness  of  shoulder,  twisted  itself 
curiously  as  it  progressed,  with  something  of  a  limp  that  was 
not  a  limp.  The  grey  eyes  with  the  tiny  black  irises  that 
reached  upwards  at  the  big  man,  had  something  eager,  star- 
ing. In  the  slightly  vulpine  nose  with  the  spreading  nostrils 
set  over  the  rather  full  carmine  of  the  lips,  there  was  something 
hungry,  biting. 

"Hullo,  Paris!"  she  said,  indifferently  eager — but  she  looked 
towards  the  door  through  which  Deirdre  had  disappeared.  The 


42  GODS 

big  man  looked,  too,  with  a  little  vertical  line  of  puzzlement 
showing  itself  momentarily  over  the  base  of  the  straight  nose, 
and  then,  his  serenity  restored,  he  slipped  a  hand  in  com- 
radely fashion  through  the  tiny  arm  of  rounded  pink  that 
gleamed  softly  through  the  white  silk  and  passed  with  her  into 
the  room  lying  beyond  the  curtained  door.  There  was  some- 
thing indefinably  feminine  about  it.  The  place  had  colour  and 
relaxation  and  it  was  cool  and  dark  after  the  hot  sun  of  the 
street. 

Figures  came  out  of  the  shadows  to  greet  Asthar,  who  was 
evidently  a  favourite.  There  were  both  men  and  women,  for 
the  Esoteric,  as  everybody  knows,  is  bi-sexual — or,  as  Paris 
Asthar  expressed  it,  "a-sexual."  The  young  men  who  showed 
themselves  had  something  feminine  in  them,  whilst  the  women, 
most  of  them  ultra-fashionably  dressed,  though  not  masculine, 
could  not  be  called  feminine.  There  was  something  languidly 
desperate,  something  eroding,  about  their  tired  eyes,  their 
painted  lips,  and  their  hollow  slender  bodies.  In  the  Esoteric, 
man  and  woman  blended  so  nearly  that  they  might  have  been 
a  third  sex.  A  neutral  sex.  "Civilisation,  thank  God!  is  de- 
veloping the  neuter  gender,"  said  Asthar. 

And  there,  Asthar,  Comrade  Magnificent,  his  arm  still 
resting  within  that  of  Stella  Fay,  lolled  upon  a  sofa  over  which 
hung  the  heavily  perfumed  women  who  puffed  at  the  scented 
cigarettes  which  they  held  between  thumb  and  first  finger,  al- 
ways excepting  the  copper-haired  girl  who  held  hers  man- 
fashion,  sucking  the  smoke  in  deeply,  holding  it  a  moment,  and 
then  expelling  it  in  two  thin  streams  from  those  hungry  nos- 
trils. The  young  men,  with  a  tendency  to  long  hair  and  hour- 
glass waists,  hung  on  each  word  as  it  came  from  the  man  they 
called  "The  Master,"  who  through  it  all  seemed  to  be  nursing 
to  himself  a  secret — something  to  be  held  deep  and  gloated 
over — a  secret  that  showed  itself  in  the  large  prominent  eye, 
in  the  assured  pose  of  the  body,  in  the  sleek  contemplation  of 
the  patent  leathers.  It  was  curious  to  note  how  he  seemed  to 
swell — to  take  new  vigour  as  he  talked  and  they  listened. 

And  so,  having  refreshed  himself,  bowing  farewell  with  that 
bulky  graciousness  which  was  already  famous,  Paris  Asthar 
went  out  into  the  golden  sunlight,  continuing  his  stroll,  su- 
perbly, inclining  like  a  prince  to  his  intimates,  showing  to  his 
subordinates  a  condescension  that  had  no  offence  but  rather 


A  DAY  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  PARIS  ASTHAR          43 

something  of  benignity,  but  always  with  that  secret  assurance 
that  had  in  it  something  of  complacency.  There  was  an  utter 
forbearance  about  Paris  Asthar  that  might  have  been  democ- 
racy, but  might  have  been  merely  slothfulness  or  even  superi- 
ority. For  the  verminous  in  the  gutters  of  Piccadilly  he  re- 
served a  special  charm  of  manner.  The  white,  rather  plump 
hand,  was  always  finding  its  way  to  the  waistcoat  of  grey  suede 
for  the  inevitable  shilling.  To  the  flower-girl  outside  the 
Berkeley,  his  pleasant  "Hullo,  Mary!"  might  have  been  the 
"Hullo,  Stella!"  of  the  hour  before.  With  the  impostor  of 
greasy  smartness  whose  medals  and  brass  plate  bore  witness  to 
the  shortness  of  memory  of  an  ungrateful  country,  he  ex- 
changed a  look  which  might  have  been  the  compounding  of  a 
felony,  but  which  ended  in  the  shilling.  The  golden  ferrule  of 
his  malacca  he  gently  inserted  in  the  stomach  of  the  baby  of 
the  peripatetic  woman  on  the  Regent  Street  curve,  making 
his  weekly  assertion  to  its  tentative  progenitor  that  he 
"hated  babies"  and  giving  her  the  invariable  shilling  to 
prove  it,  the  lady  in  question,  of  the  draggled  respectability 
of  her  kind,  yielding  however  good  current  exchange  in  a 
"Gawd  bless  yer,  Sir,"  not  wholly  ungenuine. 

And  so  across  the  street  to  the  Continental,  all  eyes  follow- 
ing the  bulky  figure  as  well  known  to  London  as  the  Mercury 
in  the  Circus.  For  each  waiter  he  had  his  own  special  greeting 
—throwing  a  word  of  Italian  at  one,  something  in  French  at 
another,  and  sending  a  round-faced  German  into  gelatinous 
delight  by  his  "Guten  Abend,  Hans!"  The  manager,  abasing 
himself  before  his  most  distinguished  customer,  conducted  him 
personally  to  his  own  seat  in  his  own  particular  corner. 

With  Asthar,  enthroned  in  solitary  majesty,  there  was  again 
that  secret  complacency.  It  was  with  him  as  he  sat  there,  the 
absinthe  in  his  glass  reflecting  itself  greenly  on  the  swarth  of 
his  face.  It  was  with  him  that  evening  as  he  sat  in  the  stalls 
at  Her  Majesty's,  gazing  out  over  the  crowd,  and  it  was  with 
him  as  he  walked  home  across  the  garland  of  the  Circus;  with 
him,  as  the  painted  girls  stared  from  under  their  leaded  brows 
at  his  great  figure;  and  with  him  as  he  hung  over  the  bridge 
at  Westminster  watching  the  stars  that  blotched  themselves 
in  the  darkling  waters. 

He  looked  down  past  the  House  of  Commons,  across  the 
jewelled  tides,  whilst  behind  him  the  hot  night-winds  blew  the 


44  GODS 

dust-eddies  about  his  polished  boots.  Towering  above  his  head, 
Big  Ben  sentinelled  London  with  his  moon  face.  The  mon- 
strous fagades  of  the  Embankment  glittered  cold  over  the 
sleeping  forms  upon  the  iron  seats  beneath.  From  a  public- 
house  across  the  water  there  came  the  strum  of  a  banjo.  The 
great  white  night  lay  about  him,  cradling  the  city. 

But  through  it  all  his  secret — the  secret  of  his  own  invinc- 
ibility and  immortality.    Paris  Asthar — Immortal. 


VI 

THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS 

THE  tiny  Japanese  images  that  stared  at  little  Togo  in  Paris 
Asthar's  drawing  room  at  "The  Cloisters"  seemed  as  much  of 
the  place  as  the  little  man  himself  and  much  more  living  than 
Beelzebub  who,  perched  sphinx-like  upon  the  edge  of  the  ebony 
Erard,  was  as  though  he  had  been  carved  out  of  the  wood  in 
which  the  yellow  eye-slants  reflected  themselves.  The  little 
man,  after  fractionally  adjusting  a  chair  or  a  vase,  his  head  a 
little  on  one  side  like  one  of  the  ivory  images  that  grinned  ap- 
proval about  him,  would  stand  back  to  survey  his  work,  mo- 
tionless as  the  cat  behind.  The  tiny  figure  in  the  suit  of  sober 
black  would  then  spring  into  life  and  with  deft  silent  move- 
ments would  adjust  an  ornament,  falling  again  into  an  image 
of  yellow  ivory.  Perhaps  Beelzebub  knew  of  what  he  was 
thinking. 

No  women  servants  were  employed  at  "The  Cloisters,"  nor, 
with  the  exception  of  Togo,  or  on  those  special  occasions  when 
a  waiter  or  two  were  imported,  did  the  guest  ever  lay  eyes  upon 
a  servant.  Somewhere,  however,  in  the  depths  of  the  old 
house  under  the  shadow  of  Westminster,  a  highly  cultivated 
troglodyte  chef  existed,  together  with  a  man  of  all  work  and  a 
small  boy. 

Nobody  knew  much  about  the  house.  Rumour  had  it  that 
it  was  the  rendezvous  of  very  curious  people  indeed.  Once,  an 
excited  pressman  had  written  up  a  cock  and  bull  story  about 
"nightly  orgies,"  Paris  Asthar  responding  by  an  exceedingly 
courteous  invitation  to  the  editor  and  staff  of  the  paper  to 
come  to  one  of  "the  orgies"  at  any  time  they  liked,  which  made 
all  London  laugh.  For,  had  he  not  said  that,  as  the  most  mis- 
understood man  in  London,  if  he  once  started  being  offended 
he  would  have  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in  actions  for  libel. 
"And  I  don't  need  the  money."  He  didn't.  He  was  one  of 
the  wealthiest  young  men  in  London. 

45 


46  GODS 

A  female  cook,  in  the  days  before  femininity  had  been 
banned,  a  lady  with  whom  he  had  had  a  slight  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  omelettes,  had,  some  years  before,  upon  her 
scientific  removal  to  the  front  steps  with  her  box  by  Togo, 
who,  in  an  encyclopaedic  mind,  found  room  for  a  knowledge 
of  jiu-jitsu,  imparted  to  a  sceptical  policeman  but  open-minded 
audience  a  story  of  a  secret  chapel.  "And,"  she  had  sniffed 
into  her  apron,  as  she  adjusted  her  bonnet,  "sich  goings  on. 
I  see'd  it  once.  A  lot  of  twirlygigs  all  over  the  ceiling  and  a 
haltar  wiv  stone  monkeys  on  it  and  hidols — naked  hidols — one 
of  'em,  a  shameless  'ussy,  'ad  'er  tongue  out  and,"  losing  all 
restraint  in  the  memory  of  her  wrongs,  "not  even  a  shift  to 
'er  back.  I've  seen  wot  I've  seen  and  I  know  wot  I  know." 

But  there,  outraged  womanhood  had  let  itself  go,  as  a  stray 
news  hound,  the  scent  strong  in  his  nostrils,  who  had  tracked 
the  good  lady  to  her  lodgings  in  the  Vauxhall  Bridge  Road, 
quickly  discovered.  Whatever  she  might  have  seen,  she  knew 
nothing.  And  although  he  did  get  a  fiver  for  a  highly  imagin- 
ative article  upon  "The  Black  Mass  in  England,"  in  the 
"Nighthawk,"  and  referred  obliquely  to  Paris  Asthar,  who 
through  his  objection  to  taking  libel  actions  was  considered 
fair  game  by  all  the  gutter  press,  nobody  believed  him.  Who 
could  believe  "The  Nighthawk" — "a  disgusting  penn'orth?" 
Of  course,  everybody  read  it,  but  that  was  another  matter. 

A  house  like  "The  Cloisters"  was  bound  to  encourage  the 
inflammatory  imagination.  There  it  stood  at  the  end  of  a 
cul-de-sac,  its  door  of  purple  glass,  behind  the  scroll  of  iron- 
work that  covered  it,  throwing  queer  lights  on  the  snowy  steps, 
which  stood  starkly  against  its  mourning  fagade,  its  high  black 
windows  shining  blankly  to  any  light  that  might  find  its  way 
over  the  high  houses  into  the  pit  beneath.  And  when  you  got 
inside,  which  was  not  easy  in  a  place  where  Togo  was  watch- 
dog, there  was  that  indefinable  heaviness  of  the  air  and  the 
high  panelling  of  dark  oak  under  the  low  ceilings. 

And  here  was  Paris  himself,  waiting  in  the  gloom  of  his 
ground-floor  drawingroom  to  receive  his  guests,  in  his  frock- 
coat,  high  collar,  and  four-in-hand  satin  tie.  The  last  he 
preened  in  the  mirror  of  polished  steel  standing  over  the  high 
fireplace  as  though  he  were  preening  his  soul,  and,  as  he  did 
so,  thought  satisfying  things. 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  front  door.    Asthar  slewed  slowly 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  47 

round  as  he  composed  his  face.  Togo,  his  legs  moving  like 
drumsticks,  toddled  to  open  it,  disclosing  Professor  Dust  in  his 
invariable  reefer  jacket,  and  looking  into  the  depths  of  an 
enormously  impossible  silk  hat  as  he  scratched  his  shaggy  head 
with  one  splay  paw  that  came  out  from  the  fore-shortened 
sleeve  of  his  jacket  out  of  which  jutted  a  false  cuff. 

Having  reluctantly  surrendered  the  hat  which,  in  his  heart 
of  hearts,  the  Professor,  otherwise  indifferent  in  matters  of 
dress,  regarded  with  secret  pride,  and  having  patted  his  dickey 
into  place  over  the  flannel  shirt  which  had  protruded  a  trifle  be- 
tween vest  and  front,  the  bearded  face,  the  eyebrows  bushing 
themselves  apprehensively  over  the  kindly  eyes — for  the  Pro- 
fessor was,  in  social  matters,  a  nervous  subject — came  forward 
at  a  trot  into  the  room  and  Paris  Asthar  found  his  smooth 
plump  hand  engulfed  by  the  hairy  paw  of  the  man  he  called 
"my  friend  the  enemy." 

But  Professor  Dust  was  almost  swept  on  one  side  by  the 
onrush  of  the  big,  well-dressed  man  with  the  upturned  nose  and 
beady  eyes  which  gave  something  porcine  to  the  smooth,  clean- 
shaven face,  who  put  his  diminutive  hand  into  that  of 
Asthar,  who  had  brought  these  two  scientific  giants  together 
because  they  hated  the  sight  of  each  other.  It  seemed  there 
had  been  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  exact  degree  of  in- 
spiration attaching  to  certain  passages  of  Darwin.  Sir  Lan- 
caster Hogge  had  heterodox  ideas  upon  environment,  whereas 
Professor  Dust  was  orthodox  to  the  last  hair  of  his  woolly 
pate. 

"What  the  devil  am  I  here  for?"  squeaked  the  famous  bio- 
logist in  a  voice  that  sounded  strange  from  that  great  cask 
of  a  body.  "That's  what  IVe  been  asking  myself  ever  since 
I  left  the  Cromwell  Road.  That's  what  I  ask."  He  sneered 
high,  a  curious  half  titter,  half  neigh. 

He  really  detested  being  there,  but  Asthar  was  to  him  as 
the  candle  to  the  moth.  The  smile  on  a  face  of  apparent  good 
humour  was  only  to  keep  up  appearances,  and  Asthar  knew  it. 

"I'll  tell  you,  my  dear  Hogge.  You're  here  partly  because 
I  asked  you,  partly  because  you're  a  fashionable  scientist,  and 
partly  because  you're  the  most  pugnacious  old  bore  that  ever 
held  to  the  Darwinian  theory.  .  .  .  Oh,  let  me  introduce  you. 
Miss  Stella  Fay — Professor  Dust  I  think  you  know."  His 
mouth,  sardonic,  twisted  itself  a  little  to  one  side. 


48  GODS 

He  turned  to  the  girl  with  the  hair  of  burnished  copper,  who 
had  just  come  in.  "Sir  Lancaster  Hogge,"  he  said,  completing 
the  introduction.  .  .  .  "Why,  God  bless  my  soul!  if  it  isn't 
AH  Baba."  He  broke  away  to  greet  a  sinuous  Indian,  who, 
exceedingly  correct,  presented  a  well-pomaded  moustache  and 
two  grinning  rows  of  white  teeth,  which  seemed  to  fill  the 
dark  face.  His  host  thought  he  looked  damnable,  but  he 
smiled  to  him  almost  affectionately. 

Ali  Hassan,  or  Ali  Baba,  as  Asthar  called  him,  was  an  inter- 
esting example  of  the  Europeanised  Indian.  Originally  Mo- 
hammedan, he  had  come  to  have  a  profound  contempt,  not 
only  for  the  hereditary  enemy,  the  Hindu,  but  for  his  mother- 
land, and  was  now  engaged  in  delivering  a  series  of  lectures 
in  the  best  Oxford  manner,  which  made  satisfying  demonstra- 
tion of  the  helplessness  of  the  Indian  and  the  virtue  of  leading 
strings. 

The  room  was  filling  with  people,  some  of  them  the  men  and 
women  of  the  Esoteric.  Togo,  in  some  way  of  his  own,  had 
managed  to  pass  into  the  room  a  silver  tea  kettle  and  some 
Dresden  cups  and  saucers,  whilst  every  chair  and  projection 
had  its  plate  of  bread  and  butter  or  cake  or  comfits.  Every- 
body was  talking,  smoking,  and  eating.  Professor  Dust,  one 
little  curved  leg  tucked  comfortably  away  under  the  knee  of 
the  other,  was  trying  to  do  all  three  at  once,  even  using  a  spare 
hand  to  scratch  his  scalp  as  well,  looking  like  some  well-trained 
animal  from  where  he  sat  in  the  corner  of  a  divan — all  this  to 
the  disgust  of  Sir  Lancaster,  who,  for  all  his  good-humour,  did 
not  trouble  to  conceal  his  outraged  feelings.  But  the  thing 
that  really  ate  into  him  and  was  at  the  root  of  all  his  disgust 
was  that  difference  of  opinion  about  environment  that  poisoned 
the  satisfactions  of  his  scientific  life.  Dust  was  always  cross- 
ing him. 

Asthar  lolled  upon  the  long  ebony  seat  before  the  grand, 
where  he  had  just  finished  playing  a  Chopin  nocturne  to  a 
scarce  breathing  audience  which  had  stopped  its  chatter  to 
listen,  for  he  was  a  very  great  amateur.  Out  of  the  silence, 
there  came  the  high  snort  of  Professor  Hogge,  who  sometimes 
had  lapses  as  to  time  and  place. 

"They  tell  me  you've  been  defending  the  devil,  Asthar,  at 
one  of  those  Tabernacle  meetings.  Good  God!  what  will  you 
do  next?" 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  49 

"I  thought  you  didn't  believe  in  one  or  the  other,"  said 
Asthar. 

"And  I  don't.  You  don't,  if  it  comes  to  that.  Nobody  does. 
It's  a  pose.  That's  what  it  is."  He  snorted  in  not  altogether 
good-humoured  offence.  Incidentally,  he  had  been  trying  for 
the  past  five  years  to  quarrel  with  Paris  Asthar  but  could 
never  manage  it.  Nobody  could. 

"Well,  what  do  you  believe  in,  Sir  Lancaster?"  asked  Stella 
Fay. 

"I  believe  in  anything  that  can  be  demonstrated.  I  believe 
in  what  I  feel  or  see  or  hear.  I  believe  in  my  biology.  I  be- 
lieve in  mathematics.  They  can  be  demonstrated." 

The  girl  shrugged  one  high  shoulder  disdainfully  and  sucked 
deeply  at  her  cigarette  as  she  thought  to  herself  what  nonsense 
it  all  was,  without  exactly  knowing  why.  Not  that  she  wanted 
to  know.  She  was  too  irritated  for  that,  and  irritation  always 
sensitized  her  intuitions  whilst  dulling  her  intellectual  pro- 
cesses. 

"Anyhow  what  is  'belief?'  Nobody  can  demonstrate  'be- 
lief.' ':  The  speaker  was  a  young-old  man,  whose  enormous 
head,  wrinkled  on  scalp  and  face,  and  weak  curly  legs,  gave  him 
something  of  those  things  preserved  in  spirits.  He  had  wafted 
over  to  them  as  he  spoke  and  now  wafted  away  again. 

"Perhaps  I  can't.  But  neither  you  nor  Asthar  can  demon- 
strate the  gods  and  devils  in  which  you  pretend  to  believe." 
The  Professor  was  becoming  steadily  more  irritable.  "What 
I  can  demonstrate  are  my  facts." 

"Will  you  die  for  your  facts?"  asked  the  girl  with  the  copper 
hair.  "People  before  now  have  died  for  gods  and  devils." 
There  was  nothing  in  the  words,  but  she  conveyed  offence 
inexpressible. 

"Belief,"  said  AH  Baba  in  a  highly  cultured  accent  and 
showing  his  rows  of  grinning  ivories — "belief  is  a  mattah  of 
opinion.  I  quite  agree  with  Sir  Lancaster."  He  tried  to  look 
as  though,  for  all  his  lightness,  he  had  thought  it  all  carefully 
out.  He  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  thinking  of  nothing. 

That  eminent  scientist  looked  at  the  smiling  Indian  with 
intense  dislike,  the  little  nose  snubbing  itself  a  trifle. 

"What  I  can  demonstrate  is  that  men  have  come  from  mon- 
keys," he  said,  looking  hard  at  the  unconscious  Indian. 


50  GODS 

"Can  you?"  asked  Asthar.  "Are  you  sure  that  monkeys 
did  not  come  from  men?" 

"Very  good,  very  good.    Ha-ha!"  grinned  Ali. 

"I  don't  see  how  anyone  who  had  not  had  a  scientific  train- 
ing could  doubt  it,"  inserted  Stella  with  an  offensiveness  that 
was  quite  her  own,  slowly  expelling  a  thin  stream  of  smoke 
from  her  left  nostril. 

The  Professor  laughed  in  high  irritation.  "Proof,"  he  said. 
"Proof." 

"Proof.  Who  wants  proof?  What  do  you  think  the  female 
of  the  species  has  her  intuitions  for?" 

"Intuitions!"  snorted  the  Professor  contemptuously.  "l In- 
tuitions !>  We  can  leave  those  to  'the  female  of  the  species."' 
Professor  Hogge  was  an  apostle  of  the  Male  Principle  and  the 
girl  had  been  very  provoking. 

"If  it  comes  to  that,  the  intuitive  is  at  least  no  more  unre- 
liable than  the  unscientific,  as  the  volte-faces  of  science  during 
the  last  century  prove."  Paris  was  blandly  informative. 

"You'll  tell  me  next  that  the  poet  is  the  best  scientist," 
sneered  Sir  Lancaster. 

"I  don't  need  to.  The  century-old  vision  of  the  poet  is  the 
scientific  fact  of  to-day.  Have  you  ever  heard  of  Shelley  or 
Yeats  or  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  Professor?" 

"Perhaps  you  don't  believe  in  the  scientific  method?"  said 
the  eminent  scientist,  in  a  voice  that  hinted  at  blasphemy. 

"The  result,  which  is  fast  becoming  the  object  of  the  scien- 
tific method  of  which  you  speak,  is  the  blurring  of  the  intui- 
tive, which,  incidentally,  is  one  reason  why  'the  female  of  the 
species'  is  necessary  as  a  corrective  to  keep  clean  the  windows 
of  our  souls.  And,  incidentally,  every  new  discovery  of  science 
is  the  result  of  those  antennae  of  intuition  which  the  scientist 
puts  out  into  the  ether  to  catch  the  breath  of  inspiration,  as 
the  fisherman  casts  his  line  into  deep  waters,  and  which  are 
the  stages  of  the  intellectual  process.  In  fact,  there  is  no 
intellectual  process."  He  looked  round  him  with  bland  inso- 
lent delight  at  the  effect  of  his  paradox. 

"What's  all  that  got  to  do  with  your  nonsense  of  monkeys 
coming  from  men?"  asked  Professor  Dust,  butting  into  the 
discussion  to  the  extreme  annoyance  of  Sir  Lancaster,  who 
frowned  majestically.  He  looked,  as  he  crouched  in  his  corner, 
like  a  very  intelligent  but  bewildered  ape  who,  for  the  first 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  51 

time  in  his  life,  had  come  across  a  nut  too  hard  for  him  to 
crack. 

" Where's  your  proof?"  he  continued,  scratching  his  shaggy 
head  with  one  of  his  great  hands. 

"Proof  of  what?"  asked  the  girl. 

" Proof  that  Asthar 's  theory  is  correct." 

"Have  you  ever  visited  the  Zoo,  Professor?"  asked  Asthar 
from  where  he  lolled.  "Have  you  ever  watched  our  poorer  rela- 
tions— a  perfectly  scientific  definition,  incidentally — making 
love  or  scratching  themselves?"  He  said  it  again,  maliciously: 
"  'scratching  themselves?'  Can  you  look  into  their  faces  and 
not  see  that  they  are  only  degenerate  humans,  intensely  old 
and  wise?  Darwin's  theory  was  all  right,  but  he  got  it  upside 
down.  Evolution  implies  descent  as  well  as  ascent." 

"Proof,"  said  Sir  Lancaster,  monotonously.     "Proof." 

"Exactly,"  said  the  Oxford  hybrid.  "Exactly,  Miss  Fay. 
Proof."  The  dark-faced  speaker  said  it  vaguely.  He  was  won- 
dering in  his  heart  whether  to  poison  the  Professor,  to  whom 
he  had  conceived  the  intense  dislike  of  the  slighted  man,  or  to 
sacrifice  the  girl  whose  hair  of  shining  copper  and  the  white- 
ness of  whose  neck  filled  his  dark  head  with  fancies. 

"You  shouldn't  talk  about  proof,"  said  the  girl  looking  at 
the  Indian,  cryptic  and  poisonous.  She  turned  away.  "Proof 
is  only  for  scientific  idiots.  Whoever  heard  of  a  woman's  in- 
tuitions being  wrong — and  whoever  heard  her  prove  them? 
Pshah!"  She  lapsed  into  contemptuous  silence. 

Sir  Lancaster  looked  at  the  amazing  girl,  sighed  angrily  and 
titillated  his  little  snub  nose  with  a  dainty  piece  of  cambric 
which  he  took  from  his  coat  sleeve. 

"When  Asthar  tells  me  he  believes  in  the  devil,  I  ask  him  to 
prove  it,"  he  said  in  a  high  atheistical  voice.  "When  he  tells 
me  he  believes  in  the  soul — again,  I  ask  him  to  prove  it."  His 
smiling  eyes  showed  a  trifle  of  brutality.  "I  cannot  find  either 
the  one  or  the  other.  In  my  lecture  which  I  delivered  before 
the  Rationalist  Truth  Society  on  'Where  does  the  Soul  lie?'  in 
which  I  have  compared  the  heart  and  brain  weights  of  monkeys 
and  men — I  declare  that  I  have  been  unable  to  find  a  soul. 
The  modern  European  finds  he  has  no  soul.  Europe,  thank 
God!_has  abolished  the  soul  and  with  it  the  devil." 
"How  can  it  abolish  what  has  never  existed?"  commented 


52  GODS 

Asthar  absently  .  .  .  "but  I  am  glad  that  you  don't  forget  to 
thank  God."  He  chuckled. 

"That  was  only  an  atavistic  slip." 

"Man  in  religion  is  atavist,"  said  his  antagonist.  "He  slips 
eternally  back  into  the  eternal.  Dogmatic  science,  like  its 
bastard  brother,  dogmatic  religion,  is  bankrupt,  dying.  But 
the  gods  are  eternal."  The  others  had  closed  in  a  trifle  as  the 
big  man  leant  there  on  one  elbow,  an  eye  turned  upwards,  lis- 
tening to  the  words  that  came  in  that  curiously  high  voice 
from  the  silver  trumpet  of  his  lips. 

"Good  God!" 

The  exclamation,  muttered,  irrepressible,  which  followed 
Asthar's  words,  came  from  the  corner  of  the  divan,  where 
Professor  Dust,  in  growing  amazement,  had  been  listening. 

"You'll  excuse  me.  Felt  it  my  duty  not  to  keep  quiet  any 
longer."  The  shaggy  man  was  very  solemn.  He  hesitated  a 
moment.  .  .  . 

"I  hear  a  cultured  Englishman.  .  .  ." 

"Irishman,"  said  Asthar,  laconic. 

"Irishman,  a  gentleman  whose  intellectual  keenness  has 
made  its  name  through  Europe,  talking  of  gods  and  devils. 
Gods  and  devils!"  There  was  amazement  in  the  voice  as  it 
rose  a  trifle  from  its  depths.  "Gods  and  devils!"  The  words 
came  in  puzzled  solemnity.  "Gods  and  devils — and  we  are 
living  on  the  threshold  of  the  twentieth  century,  when  every- 
body knows  that  there  are  no  gods  and  there  are  no 
devils.  .  .  ." 

"Who's  'everybody'?" 

"Your  correction  is  reasonable,  my  dear  Asthar,"  said  the 
scientist — "perhaps  I  should  have  said  the  people  with  prop- 
erly ordered  and  trained  minds,  that  is  to  say,  scientifically 
trained.  Science  has  abolished  all  this  talk  of  gods  and  devils, 
as  it  has  de-materialised  ghosts,  spooks,  call  'em  what  you 
will."  He  went  wide  for  a  moment  as  a  ship  yawns  in  a 
seaway.  "Nobody  believes  in  such  things  to-day  except.  .  .  . 
except  ..."  he  stumbled  a  little.  .  .  . 

"Except  Mr.  Pickles,  General  Bliss,  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  Sir  William  Crookes,  myself, 
and  three-fourths  of  the  world,  civilised  and  uncivilised."  The 
young  aristocrat  was  exasperating. 

"We  don't  believe  in  devils.    We  men  of  science.    We  say 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  53 

there  are  none,  and  there  aren't!"  He  was  becoming  more 
and  more  dogmatic  in  his  earnestness.  "There  really  aren't," 
he  added,  his  eyes  slightly  staring. 

"In  other  words,  you  replace  the  dogma  of  affirmation  by  the 
arch-dogma  of  negation,  the  scientist  taking  the  place  of  the 
priest,"  inserted  Asthar  with  smiling  suavity. 

Dust  caught  the  smile,  and  lost  himself — a  very  rare  thing 
with  him. 

"People  who  believe  in  such  things  ought  to  be  locked  up — 
for  their  own  sakes  and  others — in  asylums!" 

"Leaving  a  fourth  of  the  race  outside  to  watch  the  three- 
fourths  inside?" 

"When  we  are  dealing  with  hysteria,  the  hysteria  of  gods 
and  devils,  we  don't  know  where  we  are;  but  when  we  are 
dealing  with  the  material,  with  facts,  such  as  .  .  ."  he  hovered 
a  moment,  then  swooped,  triumphant,  "such  as  trematodes, 
we  know  where  we  are." 

"When  I  tell  you  that  I  have  found  a  specimen  of  the 
Pachypsolus  undulatus  in  the  loggerhead  turtle  (Caretta,  car- 
et t  a)  in  the  Mediterranean,  entirely  new  and  distinct  from 
species  found  in  the  stomachs  of  the  turtles  captured  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  by  Professor  Bludgett  in  the  year  1891;  and 
when  I  tell  you  that  exhaustive  microscopic  investigation 
has  disclosed  the  existence  of  a  collar-like  cephalic  ridge  of 
the  type  that  characterises  the  Pronocepkalidce,  we  know  where 
we  stand,  for  we  are  dealing  with  facts.  When  we  compare 
this  species  with  the  Rhyditodes  cymbiformis.  .  .  ."  the  Pro- 
fessor was  now  mounted  and  riding,  but  some  hazy  realisation 
of  time  and  place  finding  its  way  to  the  dark  recesses  of  his 
brain,  he  pulled  up. 

"Enough  of  that,  however,"  he  went  on  snorting  a  trifle  like 
a  blooded  charger  stopped  in  full  career.  "It  is  enough  for 
us  here  and  now  to  say  that  trematodes  are  facts,  their  knowl- 
edge of  profound  importance  to  the  race  .  .  .  but  ghosts.  .  .  ." 
he  snorted  contemptuously  .  .  "ghosts!"  He  was  silent  in 
his  indignation. 

Paris  Asthar  held  courteous  silence,  waiting  for  his  friend 
to  continue,  but,  finding  him  speechless,  he  went  on  solemnly 
as  though  no  interruption  had  taken  place: 

"To  come  from  the  trematode  to  the  god,  and  gods  are  made 
of  trematodes,  the  stuff  is  the  same,  it  is  only  the  form  that  is 


54  GODS 

different.  Dogmatic  science,  as  I  have  said,  is  dying,  but  the 
gods  are  eternal."  He  paused  a  moment. 

"Listen,"  he  said,  and  there  was  command  in  the  voice, 
from  which  the  lightness  had  fallen,  "of  all  reigns,  materialist 
science  has  had  the  shortest.  Half  a  century."  The  voice  hard- 
ened. The  olive  face,  splendidly  assured,  shone  in  the  half 
light.  "Its  temples,  like  the  temples  of  those  other  dogmas, 
are  being  deserted,  its  high  priests  blaspheme  their  beliefs  in 
the  scientific  associations  themselves.  It  is  the  scientists  them- 
selves who  have  begun  to  fall  into  the  crudest  beliefs — it  is  the 
penalty  that  materialism  pays  to  religion.  And  through  it  all, 
the  mass  of  the  people  are  untouched.  Nominally  the  religion 
of  the  educated,  like  the  dogmatic  religions  that  preceded  it, 
dogmatic  science  is  passing.  This  is  the  age  of  the  flux  of 
faiths.  Now,  my  gods,"  he  paused  a  moment,  sweeping  upon 
his  audience  a  dark  eye  in  which  the  red  lights  seemed  to  be 
the  reflection  of  the  last  rays  of  the  sun  that  came  over  the 
rooftops  outside,  "dwell  in  temples  not  made  with  hands." 

"Who  are  your  gods?"  asked  Hogge,  sarcastically. 

"They  are  the  eternal  gods — the  gods  of  power." 

"How  perfectly  wonderful!"  commented  a  woman  who 
leaned  her  superfluous  yard  of  back  across  a  sofa  standing  out 
in  the  room  and  who  had  been  listening  to  Asthar,  adoringly. 
It  was  Togo's  Mrs.  Swathe. 

"I  don't  believe  in  a  God,"  announced  AH  Baba  irrelevantly. 
"I  learned  not  to  at  Oxford."  On  his  face  was  a  superior  grin. 
"There  is  no  good  and  no  evil.  Those  are  only  terms." 

"Good  boy,  Ali  Baba!  Quite  correct,"  said  Asthar  in  deli- 
cate irony.  "Good  and  evil  are  but  parallel  lines  which,  pro- 
duced in  space,  meet,  as  every  mathematician  knows.  The 
devil,  who  is  the  king  of  mathematicians  as  he  is  the  king  of 
science,  also  knows  it.  He  can  prove  anything.  He  is  a 
brainy  devil.  But  you  believe  in  magic,  don't  you,  Ali?"  He 
glanced  at  him  maliciously. 

"Oh,  that's  different,"  said  Ali  Hassan,  hesitant.  "You  see, 
I've  seen  things  out  in  India — things  .  .  ."  he  stumbled,  con- 
fused. 

"Yes,  he's  seen  things,"  said  the  man  like  a  thing  in  a  bottle, 
wafting  forward  out  of  the  shadows,  and  then  disappearing. 

"How  wonderful,"  said  Mrs.  Swathe,  wriggling  half  a  yard 
of  back,  ecstatic.  This  lady's  faith  was  satisfactory — and 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  55 

simple.  It  was  that  only  good  existed,  and  she  got  over  such 
trifles  as  toothache  and  delirium  tremens  by  saying  that  they 
were  only  good,  disguised. 

"Yes,  isn't  it?"  said  Asthar,  smilingly. 

"But  what  nonsense  is  this  about  science  being  bankrupt?" 
put  in  Professor  Hogge,  who  had  been  vainly  waiting  to  get  in 
a  word.  "Do  you  think  the  world  is  going  back  to  its  beliefs 
in  gods  and  devils?" 

"It  has  never  left  them,"  retorted  Asthar.  "This  age  of 
materialism  was  but  a  phase — a  mask.  The  centuries  have 
seen  many  such  phases.  Some  day,  the  gods  will  fling  Europe 
into  the  crucible  of  war  to  burn  off  the  last  incrustations  of 
to-day's  materialism.  People  will  say  in  that  day  of  war  that 
it  has  come  because  somebody  wants  Morocco,  or  because 
some  nation  has  misbehaved  itself,  or  because  of  nothing — but 
it  will  come  to  tear  down  the  veils  between  the  worlds,  and 
for  no  other  reason.  On  the  fields  of  death,  the  veil  wears 
thin.  .  .  .  For  no  other  reason,"  he  added  after  a  moment 
from  where  he  half  reclined.  "The  gods  use  strong  medicine." 

Togo,  who  had  been  flitting  from  place  to  place,  his  head 
on  one  side,  stopped  in  his  clearing  away.  He  was  staring  at 
the  ceiling.  Under  the  ochre  of  his  face  there  spread  a  slow 
grin  of  scepticism  that  passed  as  it  came.  The  silence  was 
only  broken  by  the  high  snuff  of  Sir  Lancaster. 

The  shadows  had  fallen  in  the  old  room  in  which  the  figures, 
shadows  themselves,  had  drawn  in  around  the  music  bench,  as 
around  a  throne.  The  man  sitting  there  had  lifted  himself  a 
little,  the  eye  with  the  red  lights  in  it  shining  whitely  as  it 
looked  out  through  the  windows,  looking  as  though  it  saw 
something.  In  the  turn  of  the  head  there  was  tremendous 
certainty. 

He  went  on,  and  now  the  voice  that  came  through  the 
round  of  the  lips  was  as  the  voice  of  another  and  delivering  the 
message  of  another — of  others: 

"You  think  the  gods  are  dead.  The  gods  never  die.  They 
have  never  been  more  living — both  the  gods  of  power  and  those 
others,  for  the  gods,  like  mortals,  fight  together.  The  prin- 
ciple of  godship,  as  of  mortality,  is  struggle.  You  think  that 
this  life  of  the  concrete,  if  you  will,  of  the  conscious,  this  life  of 
eating  and  drinking,  buying  and  selling,  lovemaking  and  death 
is  the  life.  It  is  but  the  shadow  of  life — all  these  things  are 


S6  GODS 

but  shadows  of  the  things  behind,  pin-points  in  space  for  the 
realisation  of  the  end  of  life — consciousness.  The  things  that 
you  say  have  no  existence,  the  things  of  superstition  or  magic 
or  faith,  are  reality — this  earth-life,  the  unreal.  Everything 
exists.  There  is  no  non-existence.  Everything  that  can  be 
thought,  exists,  for  thought  is  the  creator. 

"The  things  seen  in  the  ravings  of  a  madman,  the  delirium 
tremens  of  the  alcoholist — have  these  things  no  existence  be- 
cause you  cannot  see  them?  Has  the  ether  no  existence  be- 
cause it  cannot  be  seen  or  weighed?  Are  there  not  sounds  too 
great  or  too  tiny  to  be  heard — forces  too  fine  to  be  measured? 
And  do  not  the  gods  exist  because  you  cannot  see  them  or  feel 
them?" 

The  only  thing  that  showed  itself  in  the  now  darkened  room 
was  the  white  of  Ali  Baba's  eyes  where  they  turned  sideways 
to  look  at  the  glint  of  a  sun  ray  upon  the  copper  hair  of  Stella 
Fay.  The  shadow  near  the  door  might  have  been  Togo. 

"You  who  stand  for  the  concreteness  of  fact,  which,  for  like 
all,  you  must  have  your  God,  you  have  deified.  Where  have 
you  been  able  to  secure  foothold  for  the  negation  of  unbelief? 
How  many  of  the  millions  of  these  islands  do  not  believe? 
How  many  of  Europe's  white  millions  have  no  belief,  secret 
or  avowed?  In  this  continent  of  the  material,  the  gods  still 
sway  the  secret  thoughts  of  men.  The  financier,  like  the  book- 
maker, consults  the  occultist  in  secret.  The  gods  hold  their 
sway  in  the  kingdom  of  the  gods,  in  the  souls  of  men,  in  those 
chambers  of  flickering  consciousness  where  men's  actions  are 
born.  The  European  no  longer  worships  his  gods  in  churches, 
he  worships  them  in  a  temple  not  made  with  hands — in  his 
heart.  He  worships  even  whilst  he  blasphemes,  believes  whilst 
he  denies.  On  the  threshold  of  what  men  call  death,  the  atheist 
falters."  His  own  voice  trembled  a  little  as  he  added — "For 
even  the  devils  believe  and  tremble." 

"The  gods  are  not  dead  in  Europe  because  the  milk-white 
gods  of  the  Christian  with  their  humility  and  repentance  are 
passing — because  in  their  place  are  coming  the  gods  of  assured- 
ness, consciousness,  power,  and  with  them,  the  new  religion,  the 
Religion  of  Consciousness.  The  gods  are  not  dead  because 
we  are  now  witnessing  one  of  the  age-long  struggles  for  power — 
between  the  White  Gods  and  what  men  call  the  Powers  of 
Darkness,  for  we  are  seeing  the  rise  of  mysticism  and  the 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  57 

gods  of  power  at  last  coming  into  their  own."  He  spoke  in  a 
sort  of  suppressed  passion  as  though  these  things  were  being 
forced  out  of  him. 

"The  gods  do  not  lack  devotees  because  the  European  is 
not  building  new  temples.  The  gods  are  worshipped  in  men's 
hearts — they  are  fed,  nay,  they  are  created,  by  their  thoughts. 
The  gods  are  always  worshipped,  unconsciously  or  consciously. 
When  the  materialist  speaks  of  the  passing  of  the  Idea  of 
God,  he  means  the  passing  of  the  church.  He  does  not  know 
that  the  deepest  life  of  a  nation  is  its  subjective,  not  its  ob- 
jective— life — its  unconscious,  not  its  conscious,  existence.  The 
great  mass  are  as  unconscious  as  the  toad  in  the  rock.  Like 
children,  they  have  no  past  and  no  future.  They  live  only 
in  the  present.  It  is  only  in  moments  of  stress  that  the  sub- 
jective rises  above  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  for  trans- 
lation into  action,  because  it  lies  deepest.  In  moments  of 
stress,  national  and  individual,  the  belief  in  the  unseen  rises 
as  surely  as  dead  men  rise  out  of  deep  waters.  . 

"You  say  that  the  gods  of  other  ages  have  died.  They  have 
not  died.  They  have  died  but,  like  their  symbols,  to  take 
new  life  under  other  names  and  forms,  for  with  the  rise  of 
mysticism  to-day,  the  power  of  the  symbol  returns — the  swas- 
tika, the  Cross,  the  Crescent,  these  things  have  always  been 
and  always  will  be,  in  one  or  another  form.  The  goddess  of 
the  flesh  that  has  been  worshipped  as  Astarte  and  Anunit, 
Astharoth  and  Belit,  Mylitta  and  Tanit  and  Venus,  is  not 
dead  because  she  has  changed  her  names  and  ritual.  She  is 
worshipped  to-day  in  every  European  city;  she  dominates  still 
in  dark  and  awful  forms  the  souls  of  men.  To  her  the 
thoughts  of  millions  pay  their  tribute  daily.  She  and  only 
she  occupies  a  third  of  our  waking  and  sleeping  lives — In 
thought  or  act.  The  gods  live  on  that  on  which  they  feed — 
on  the  prayers  and  thoughts  of  men.  Without  their  food 
they  die,  for  the  gods  are  mortal.  They  are  born  again,  for 
they  are  immortal. 

A  little  sigh  came  out  of  the  shadows.  It  might  have  been 
Stella  Fay. 

"The  gods  dead?  Social  Democracy,  like  Science,  came  out 
to  destroy  them,  but  to-day  the  Social  Democracy  of  our  time 
is  pregnant  with  its  gods — the  gods  of  Democracy  if  you  will, 
for  Democracy  has  created  its  own  gods  in  its  own  image- 


58  GODS 

that  Democracy  which  has  become  a  cult,  the  songs  of  which 
are  hymns,  its  speeches — prayers.  And  opposed  to  it,  power 
and  a  power-class,  whose  gods  are  my  gods,  the  gods  of  power, 
whose  litany  is  made  to  Caste,  worshipped  by  unconscious 
followers  who,  like  their  antagonists,  invoke  their  invisible 
leaders  whom  they  have  taken  from  the  old  gods  of  Hebrew 
and  Christian  that  they  have  transformed.  And  now,  even 
the  democratic  gods  themselves  are  becoming  gods  of  power 
as  Democracy  itself  climbs  to  the  seats  of  the  mighty. 

"Or,  if  you  leave  the  continent  of  the  concrete,  you  will 
find  that  the  gods  of  power,  driven  by  the  gods  of  the  Chris- 
tian back  to  their  ancestral  fastnesses  in  Asia  where  un- 
counted millions  have  raised  their  hierarchies  tier  upon  tier 
since  time  was  young,  are  once  more  stealing  back.  In  India, 
where  the  gods  who  walk  the  earth  still  live  in  the  abodes  of 
men.  In  Russia,  whose  millions  give  lip-service  to  the  white 
gods,  but  who  build  their  altars  and  make  their  sacrifices 
to  those  others.  Or  will  you  pass  to  Africa  where  the  gods 
of  the  lower  worlds  form  a  hybrid  phantasmagoria  of  god- 
ship,  in  which  the  black  magic  of  the  negro  holds  its  sway 
against  all  the  pulings  of  the  missionary?  Egypt,  the  time-old 
home  of  the  occult,  where  all  the  teachings  of  Islam  as  of 
Christ  have  been  unable  to  displace  the  invocation  of  the 
gods  of  power,  that  Egypt  the  pyramids  of  which  were  once 
the  houses  of  initiation  of  the  novitiate  of  the  religion  of 
power  and  magic,  that  Egypt  which  will  once  again  be  the 
nursery  of  the  gods. 

"Or  will  you  turn  to  South  America  with  its  inextricable 
tangle  of  white  and  black  gods,  whose  sons  worship  the 
bloody  gods  of  Aztec  even  whilst  they  bow  themselves  under 
the  Cross?  For  the  gods  of  power  are  jealous  gods.  They 
stay  where  they  were  bred.  Or  to  North  America  where  a 
new  religion  rises  every  twenty-four  hours  and  where  one  day 
a  great  world-religion  will  come  out  of  the  travail  of  the 
sects — a  white  religion — for  America,  with  Ireland,  will  be 
the  last  stronghold  of  the  white  gods?" 

The  shadows  had  drawn  closer  in  the  room.  A  single  ray 
of  sunlight  found  its  way  into  the  corner  behind  the  blue 
curtain. 

"You  speak  of  your  science  that  is  itself  but  an  attempt 
for  man  to  become  god,  for  the  finite  to  demonstrate  the  in- 


THE  POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  59 

finite.  Look  to  the  four  hundred  millions  who  in  the  dead 
centuries  passed  through  that  stage  .  .  .  and  found  nothing. 
China,  a  mirage  of  intellect,  the  apotheosis  of  the  material, 
believing  nothing,  hoping  nothing.  There,  amongst  the  yellow 
myriads,  lie  the  ashes  of  the  scientific  method  as  of  Science, 
and  you  would  thrust  mankind  back  on  to  what  has  only  been 
a  bridge  from  the  instinct  of  the  animal  to  the  intuition — god- 
like intuition — of  man.  Man  cannot  always  stand  on  his 
bridges." 

The  little  yellow  figure  that  had  slipped  through  the  door 
and  now  stood  behind  the  fold  of  the  blue  curtain,  was 
listening.  But  it  did  not  smile. 

"Science."  The  speaker  laughed.  "Humility.  Self-sacri- 
fice. Faith."  He  laughed  again,  high,  assured.  "The  gods 
of  power  are  coming  back  to  their  own.  Men  shall  learn 
power,  not  humility.  Realisation,  not  sacrifice.  Conscious- 
ness, not  faith.  The  gods  are  waiting — they  are  here — they 
are  listening.  .  .  ." 

He  flung  up  his  hand  in  passion  uncontrollable.  The  last 
ray  of  sunlight  disappeared  from  the  window.  They  sat 
there  in  the  silence. 


VII 

FINN   WRESTLES   WITH   THE  DEVIL 

As  Finn  left  the  Tin  Tabernacle  on  the  night  of  the  revival 
meeting  which  had  ended  so  disastrously,  a  pamphlet  was 
thrust  into  his  hands  by  a  greybearded  man  in  a  soft  wide- 
awake. As  he  caught  the  eye  of  the  man,  he  had  that  feeling 
which  had  come  to  him  sometimes  in  the  case  of  others,  the 
feeling  that  he  had  seen  the  man  somewhere  before,  quite  re- 
cently, and  then  he  remembered — it  was  the  Lanthorn  hat 
and  the  Lanthorn  beard  and  eye,  only  that  the  eye  was 
harder,  less  "fluid."  But  even  as  he  thought  it,  he  caught 
sight  of  his  father,  a  little  bent,  walking  by  his  side — and  it 
might  have  been  his  father.  Many  times  had  it  come  to  him 
that  some  of  the  faces  about  him  were  as  of  one  family,  as 
though  he  had  known  these  people  at  other  times  and  in  other 
places,  that  there  was  some  hidden  connection  linking  them 
together — and  with  him. 

Yet  these  faces,  so  alike,  often  belonged  to  people  who  had 
nothing  in  common.  A  touch,  and  the  face  of  the  atheist 
became  as  the  face  of  his  father,  a  believer.  A  turn  in  the 
grey  filament  of  the  brain,  and  the  thing  that  made  this  grey- 
beard in  the  wideawake,  propagandist  for  rationalism — he  had 
read  the  title  of  the  pamphlet:  'There  is  no  Hell." — might 
have  made  him  perhaps  Lanthorn  and  sent  him  into  the  ranks 
of  the  spiritualists,  or,  with  another  turn,  given  him  the  awe 
and  veneration  that  was  his  father's. 

It  was  all  very  confused  and  yet  a  confusion  that  only 
needed  a  touch  to  make  it  plain.  It  was  like  the  dream  which 
had  been  with  him  as  far  back  as  he  could  remember — the 
dream  of  a  veiled  figure  which  he  followed  down  an  endless 
twisting  lane,  the  face  of  which  he  expected  to  see  at  the  next 
turn,  but  which  he  never  saw.  At  any  moment  the  answer 
might  come.  It  was  just  like  that. 

Why  was  it?  Finn  was  at  this  time  in  a  continual  state 

60 


FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  61 

of  interrogation.  As  his  father  said:  "Why  can't  you  behave 
yourself  like  a  reasonable  boy?  What  for  do  you  always  want 
to  be  asking  the  reason  of  everything?  You're  a  young 
atheist,  that's  what  you  are."  And  then,  having  done  his 
duty,  Jemmy  would  go  back  to  bury  himself  in  Martyr  and 
MacGlusky's  Specials. 

His  sweet  little  grandmother,  to  whom  he  sometimes  ap- 
pealed on  these  difficulties  as  to  the  Higher  Court  of  expe- 
rience, for  which  youth,  despite  its  bravado,  has  haunting  re- 
spect, would  tell  him  to  "trust  in  the  Lord  and  his  Word." 
That  it  troubled  the  little  woman  at  times  was  apparent, 
for  Finn  had  heard  her  at  the  foot  of  the  three  steps  that 
led  from  her  bed,  when  one  morning  she  had  fallen  down  all 
three — she  was  getting  a  little  feeble — pray,  as,  slightly 
stunned,  she  sat  on  the  floor  at  the  bottom:  "Oh  Lord!  bring 
the  dear  boy  to  his  loving  Saviour  and  stop  his  questions. 
Amen."  And  so  she  sat  in  her  nightgown  of  unbleached 
calico  comfortably  at  the  bottom,  waiting  to  be  picked  up,  and 
calling  "Jemmy!"  at  intervals  in  her  quavering  treble. 

But  it  was  Finn  who  kissed  her  and  put  her  on  her  feet 
and  fetched  her  red  flannel  petticoat,  and  then,  like  a  decent 
man,  went  out  of  the  room. 

Old  Mrs.  Fountain  never  wasted  any  time  in  praying  for 
herself.  She  always  feared  to  go  out  of  the  world  before  she 
had  done  her  best  at  the  throne  of  grace  for  those  about  her. 
And  when  she  fell  down,  which  she  not  infrequently  did,  she 
always  feared  it  might  be  the  end,  and  prayed  accordingly — 
for  others,  not  herself. 

When  Finn  got  home  from  the  meeting,  he  smuggled  some 
petroleum  out  of  the  cupboard  in  the  scullery  and  filled  his 
"penny  stinker,"  as  the  ribald  storekeeper  called  the  brass 
lamps  he  sold  in  the  little  general  utility  shop  at  the  bottom 
of  the  road,  just  opposite  the  Methodist  chapel,  which  he 
flouted  on  Sundays  by  tinkering  with  an  ungodly  paraffin 
motor  which  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  out  a  series  of  ex- 
plosive stinkings  as  the  faithful  went  into  chapel. 

This  lamp  he  took  up  to  his  room  with  the  sloping  ceiling 
under  the  slates  at  the  top  of  the  house,  sleuthily  ignoring 
his  mother's  warning:  "Now,  don't  let  me  find  a  light  under 
your  door  ten  minutes  from  now.  Wasting  the  oil  indeed!" 
Mrs.  Fontaine  had  a  nasty  habit  of  stealing  up  the  two  flights 


62  GODS 

from  the  connubial  chamber  on  the  first  floor  to  see  if  Finn 
was  "reading  in  bed" — a  capital  sin  to  which  he  was  much 
addicted.  Finn  chanced  it,  and  opened  his  pamphlet. 

It  was  a  fascinating  pamphlet  in  its  ashen  cover.  It  started 
out  with  confident  assertion:  "There  is  no  Hell,"  and  proved 
its  hatred  of  dogma  by  a  series  of  dogmatic  questions,  to 
which  it  returned  a  series  of  perfectly  satisfactory  dogmatic 
answers.  "Has  anyone  ever  been  to  hell?"  "Has  anyone 
ever  seen  the  devil?"  "Has  anyone  ever  come  back  to  tell 
the  tale?"  "Has  anyone  ever  seen  God?"  "Has  anyone  ever 
been  to  heaven?"  And  wound  up  by  asking:  "Are  these  ques- 
tions fair  and  square  or  are  they  not?" 

Now  all  this  was  very  fair  and  square  and  above  board, 
if  not,  for  some  obscure  reason  which  would  doubtless  later 
be  plain,  very  satisfying.  But  what  could  man  have  more 
than  the  truth?  Finn  himself  was  an  interrogative  animal. 
He  trembled  with  excitement  as  he  read.  Here,  anyhow,  was 
assurance  and  consciousness.  The  people  about  him — old  Crux 
at  the  office,  his  father  and  mother  and  aunts  at  home,  the 
people  he  met  in  trains  and  churches — none  of  these  had  con- 
sciousness or  certainty.  Old  Crux,  who  had  sung  the  Glory 
Song  with  the  rest  at  Billy  Pickles'  meeting  the  other  evening 
and  who  gave  with  both  hands  to  the  Salvation  Army  and  to 
charity,  thought  nothing  of  sending  half  a  thousand  little 
investors  to  starvation  by  "bulling"  or  "bearing"  the  stock 
market,  or,  for  that  matter,  of  nearly  working  a  clerk  to 
death  and  then  "firing"  him,  all  the  time  keeping  wages  down 
to  the  bone.  His  son  Parker  taught  in  a  Sunday-school,  but 
on  week  days  "operated"  without  questioning  in  John  L.  Crux, 
Limited,  with  as  little  compunction  or  doubt  as  its  founder. 

Yet  both  men,  in  their  way,  were  genuine.  His  father,  for  all 
his  praying  and  concealed  Methodism,  made  qualmless  state- 
ments about  Martyr  and  MacGlusky's  products  which  he 
knew  had  no  foundation  save  in  an  imagination  fertilised  by 
competition — that  is,  until  he  reached  the  point  when  he  be- 
lieved his  own  prevarications.  The  curate  at  the  church  in  the 
High  Road  was  a  regular  port  wine  curate  who  snobbed  to 
Bishops,  who  was  always  talking  about  "taking  a  little  wine 
for  the  stomach's  sake,"  and  taking  it  pretty  often.  You 
couldn't  expect  much  of  him — but  what  about  his  rector, 
a  bearded  straight-nosed  man  of  inflexible  principle  who  had 


FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  63 

spoken  to  Finn  solemnly  about  the  personal  purity  and  clean- 
ness of  heart  necessary  for  anyone  taking  the  Holy  Com- 
munion— he  called  it  "the  Eucharist" — and  then  had  handed 
the  chalice  without  a  word  to  old  Branberry,  the  lushy  old 
brewer  who  owned  half  a  dozen  gin  palaces,  whose  life  was 
a  running  sore,  and  had  even  beatified  him  in  a  way  from  the 
pulpit  after  he  had  given  the  money  for  the  repair  of  the 
steeple.  And  the  rector,  he  had  to  admit,  was  an  honest  man, 
after  his  lights.  And  there  was  that  day  when  he  had  seen 
Blackburn,  the  great  amateur  athlete  and  county  cricketer, 
whom  he  personally  had  canonised,  get  his  century  against 
Yorkshire  on  the  county  ground.  A  fine,  clean-limbed,  lis- 
some specimen  of  manhood  he  was,  but  as  he  stood  outside 
the  dressing  room,  worshipping  distantly  at  his  shrine,  he 
heard  him  tell  his  companions  a  story  as  he  sipped  his  glass  of 
whisky  which  even  now  brought  the  blood  to  his  face.  He 
himself  was  a  teetotaller  and  non-smoker — to  him  tobacco  and 
alcohol  were  questions  of  religion,  of  inner,  natural  decency — 
to  others,  only  questions  of  training  or  "wind"  or  convenience. 

Finn  Fontaine  was  puzzled  to  death  at  the  mad  world  about 
him — a  world  illogical  and  unconscious.  Only  youth  was 
logical.  It  sometimes  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  made  of  a 
different  stuff  to  those  others.  It  was  not  that  they  were 
worse  or  better.  It  was  only  that  there  was  a  difference  of 
quality,  something  basic,  unchangeable. 

Now  he  had  at  last  got  on  the  track  of  logic.  It  had  all 
this  time  been  hidden  in  the  ashen  bosom  of  the  Rationalist 
Thinkers'  Union,  which,  instead  of  going  around  things,  say- 
ing and  pretending  one  thing  and  doing  another,  sidestepping 
the  obvious  and  never  replying  directly  to  a  question,  an- 
swered a  downright  "Yes"  or  "No."  It  was  all  quite  simple. 
"Did  God  exist  or  did  he  not?"  The  Rationalist  Thinkers  did 
not  begin  to  answer  in  the  way  of  the  grown-ups:  "Well,  it  all 
depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  God.  .  .  ."  Instead,  they 
asked  another  plain  question:  "Has  anyone  seen  God?" 
"No."  "Then  there  is  no  God." 

Something  straggled  across  the  retina  of  his  mind  like  one 
of  those  insects  that  skate  on  the  surface  of  ponds:  "No  man 
hath  seen  God  at  any  time."  It  disturbed  his  self-satisfaction. 
But  he  got  rid  of  it.  "Dogma,"  he  said.  He  read  on.  ... 

The  pamphlet  showed  exactly  how  the  Idea  of  God  had 


64  GODS 

arisen  in  the  mind  of  primitive  man — that  great  ape  which 
had  risen  from  all  fours  to  stand  upright  by  reaching  after 
the  fruits  on  the  trees,  and  then  to  tower  over  the  trees  and 
over  the  world.  How  the  Jahweh  or  Jehovah- Jah  of  the 
Israelites  was  only  one  of  a  hierarchy  of  gods — (he  said  that 
word  "hierarchy"  over  several  times,  he  liked  new  words  and 
it  seemed  a  sort  of  sheet-anchor  for  his  new  ideas) — only 
one  of  a  hierarchy  of  gods,  and  had  been  taken  over  by  the 
early  Christian  church  and  finally  made  into  the  one  anthropo- 
morphic—  (he  said  that  word  also  over  again  and  very  proud 
and  intellectually  stiff-necked  he  felt  when  he  had  done  so)— 
God  which  that  church  thought  it  worshipped  to-day.  That 
was  all  very  satisfying.  At  last  he  had  found  anchor-hold  in 
the  shifting  sands  of  life. 

The  penny  stinker  burned  itself  out  as  he  neared  the  last 
page,  which  he  had  to  read  upon  a  vast  expenditure  of  matches. 
It  finished  with  a  series  of  clinchings:  "What  you  can't  see, 
can't  exist — can  it?"  "What  you  can't  prove,  can't  exist — 
can  it?"  "What  nobody  has  seen  can't  be — can  it?" 

The  next  few  days  he  went  about  like  a  sort  of  superior 
ape  in  a  wilderness  of  monkeys  and  with  a  quiet  satisfaction 
which  made  his  grandmother  think  he  was  ill.  "Do  take  a 
herbal,  ducky,"  she  would  say,  commending  her  infallible 
remedy  for  all  ills  whether  of  mind  or  body.  "A  good  clearing 
out  is  what  you  want,  boy."  (She  pronounced  it  "bye,"  one 
of  the  things  that  always  disgusted  his  mother.)  But  Finn 
preferred  his  mental  constipation  and  went  about  looking 
darkly  at  his  father,  mother,  and  aunts,  and  saying  to  him- 
self: "If  you  only  knew  how  I  could  smash  you  all  up  with 
your  God  and  your  Devil  and  your  heaven  and  your  hell. 
Is  there  a  hell?  Yah!  Heaven?  Pjah?  What  you  can't 
see,  you  idiots,  can't  exist — can  it?"  And  so  on.  But  he 
never  looked  darkly  on  his  grandmother. 

He  even  sat  down  to  write  a  pamphlet  himself.  This  pam- 
phlet was  to  be  different  to  anything  that  ever  had  gone  be- 
fore. It  was  to  cause  a  revolution  in  thought.  He  was  simply 
going  to  ask  a  mad  world,  which  at  these  moments — in  the 
present  case  for  the  purpose  of  his  pamphlet — he  persuaded 
himself  to  be  sane,  a  series  of  questions,  opposite  which  in  a 
parallel  column  he  set  down  the  answers.  Thus: 


FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  65 

Question.  Answer. 

Is  there  a  God?  How  do  you  know? 

No,  that  was  no  good.  It  was  no  use  answering  a  question 
by  asking  another,  which  was  Finn's  usual  method,  although 
he  did  not  know  it.  So  he  began  again: 

Question.  Answer. 

Is  there  a  God?  No. 

Why?  Because  you   can't   see   him,   and 

what  you  can't  see,  can't  exist. 

That  looked  better,  but  savoured  of  plagiarism.  However, 
he  tried  again,  and  at  the  end  of  a  week  had  produced  a  sort 
of  "Magnall's  Questions"  which  made  him  think  that  writing 
was  not  quite  so  easy  as  he  had  always  believed  it,  a  con- 
viction which  had  originally  come  to  him  after  the  first  article 
he  had  ever  written  in  his  life,  written,  impellent,  after  the 
Tabernacle  meeting  and  the  ash-covered  pamphlet.  This  ar- 
ticle, which  was  a  more  or  less  sanguinary  attack  on  revelation 
as  revealed  at  revival  meetings,  he  had  sent  out  to  the  "British 
Weekly,"  and  afterwards  to  the  " Church  Times,"  the  former 
having  been  introduced  by  his  Aunt  Bella,  who  had  literary 
lapses,  the  latter  being  the  fortifier  of  his  mother's  orthodoxy, 
which,  however,  she  only  skimmed — both  she  and  Jemmy  were 
"skimmers."  Both  had  returned  to  him  and  in  doing  so  had 
sandbagged  his  faith  for  the  time. 

Desperate,  he  had  told  Father  Lestrange  all  about  it  and 
had  given  him  the  MS.  which  he  had  written  on  his  type- 
writer during  office  hours.  (Where  art  was  concerned,  Finn 
was  soundly  unmoral.)  And  this  MS.,  in  some  mysterious 
way,  had  appeared  in  "The  Lanthorn,"  headed  by  a  little 
italicised  note  from  the  editor,  who  had  printed  it,  he  said, 
as  "a  light  from  an  unbiassed  young  mind  upon  to-day's  re- 
ligion." 

Finn  thought  the  article  wonderful,  although  "the  unbiassed 
young  mind"  stuck  for  some  reason  or  other  in  his  throat,  but 
it  was  really  very  crude. 

The  MS.  of  the  pamphlet  he  had  begun  to  write  he  kept 
by  him  in  case  he  could  alter  it  and  he  began  to  haunt  the 
bookstalls.  There  was  one  with  a  steeple  on  the  top  of  it 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Mansion  House  which  always  had 
a  tray  of  second-hand  books  and  a  very  nice  young  man  in 


66  GODS 

a  rather  seedy  morning  coat,  who  was  wont  to  gaze  owl-like 
from  the  doorway  through  two  magnifying  spectacles  which 
spanned  his  pimple  of  a  nose,  an  enlarged  one  of  the  many 
that  covered  his  face.  This  young  man  one  day  having  asked 
him,  to  his  extreme  confusion,  as  to  the  kind  of  book  for 
which  he  was  looking,  and  a  conversation  ensuing,  it  eventuated 
that  the  pimple-nosed  young  man  was  a  passionate  ration- 
alist, with  a  determination  to  believe  nothing,  which  rather 
upset  Finn's  ideas  about  the  division  of  the  world  into  propa- 
gandists and  indifferents,  for  he  had  somehow  or  other  always 
associated  really  violent  propaganda  with  the  Christians. 

It  was  he  who  sold  Finn  an  ash-coloured  Rationalist 
Thinkers'  "Life  after  Death?"  which  proved  to  Finn  the  next 
morning  about  4  o'clock  that  when  he  was  dead  he  was  dead 
and  that  was  that.  He  was  rather  confused  and  puzzled  to 
find  that  a  draught  had  begun  to  blow  upon  the  intellectual 
self-satisfaction  of  the  previous  weeks.  It  was  as  though  he 
had  let  a  ghost  into  a  well-warmed  house. 

He  went  to  sleep  and  dreamt  that  the  pimple-nosed  young 
man — the  same  young  man,  but  who  somehow,  in  the  way 
of  dreams,  was  really  his  father — his  eyes  ominously  enlarged, 
an  ash-covered  book  in  his  hand,  the  other  under  his  coat 
tails,  was  standing  over  him  and  proving  to  him,  to  his  own 
intense  satisfaction,  that  there  was  no  heaven,  there  was  no 
hell,  and  soon  there  would  be  no  Finn  Fontaine.  He  awoke 
in  a  cold  sweat. 

He  could  hardly  meet  his  father's  eye  the  next  few  weeks, 
and  suffered,  literally,  a  hell  of  a  time,  dragged  as  he  was 
between  intellect  and  inspiration,  with  the  latter,  illogically, 
pulling  deeper.  In  the  mornings  he  would  awake  a  rationalist, 
rational  to  the  marrow  of  his  backbone,  but  as  the  autumn 
evenings  drew  on,  he  would  lapse  into  superstition  and  a 
joyous  assurance  of  immortality. 

It  was  in  one  of  these  stages  of  flux,  when  all  the  world 
seemed  to  be  melting  under  his  feet  and  when,  for  the  first 
time,  he  learned  the  meaning  of  "his  heart  turned  to  water," 
Finn  flung  his  big,  bony  length  down  by  the  little  stretcher- 
bed  in  his  room  and  prayed,  his  long  inexorable  nose  in  his 
hands:  "Oh  God!  give  me  assurance — give  me  certainty!" 
It  was  horrible  as  he  crouched  there  to  find  how  quickly  the 
first  flush  of  feeling  was  passing.  It  made  him  desperate. 


FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  67 

"Show  yourself  oh  God!    if  you  exist,"  he  prayed  brutally, 
challenging  the  Infinite.     "Give  me  a  sign." 

He  looked  up,  expecting  to  see  something.  He  looked 
through  the  little  low  window  at  the  stars  coming  out  in  the 
velvet  of  the  autumn  night.  He  did  not  know  what  he  ex- 
pected to  see — but  he  did  not  see  it.  It  was  no  good.  It  was 
all  nonsense.  The  Rationalist  Thinkers  were  right. 

But  even  as  he  thought  it,  there  came  that  old  longing  for 
infallibility.  Above  all,  the  desire  to  love.  Rationalism,  some- 
how, had  no  room  for  love. 

It  was  then  he  discovered  that  he  had  never  given  up  the 
Idea  of  God,  which  lay  in  the  depths  as  something  shining 
in  dark  waters. 

In  his  despair  for  a  rock  upon  which  to  build  his  beliefs, 
there  ran  across  his  mind  Father  Lestrange's:  "And  upon  this 
rock  will  I  build  my  church,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it."  He  would  go  to  the  Jesuit. 

He  found  him  in  a  narow  high  white-washed  study,  the 
walls  of  which  were  only  broken  by  a  steel  engraving  of  the 
Jesuit  "general"  and  a  common  plaster  crucifix,  the  wood  of 
the  cross  standing  starkly  against  the  limewash.  It  was 
lighted  by  a  single  high  window  facing  a  blank  wall. 

There  was  an  asceticism  about  the  place  that  repelled  him. 
It  was  a  sort  of  sterilisation  chamber  in  which  ideas  were 
limned  with  surprising  clarity  and  was  the  reverse  of  the 
sensuousness  with  which  he  had  always  associated  the  Roman 
Communion,  for,  with  the  exception  of  that  solitary  visit  to 
the  Westminster  chapel,  he  had  never  been  inside  a  Catholic 
Church — "it  was  the  tasting  of  meats  offered  to  idols,"  his 
father  had  said.  His  mother  had  not  been  so  sure. 

In  that  nakedness,  he  felt  like  a  soul  unshrived,  naked  to 
some  unseen  Eye  that  watched.  But  he  forgot  the  bareness 
of  the  place  in  the  warm,  strong  handclasp  of  the  tall  priest, 
who  in  that  whiteness  looked  drawn.  But  the  dark  fiery 
eye  rolled  itself  on  him  in  that  intimate  humanity  which  al- 
ways acted  as  solvent. 

The  priest  did  not  give  him  a  chance  to  blunder  into  an 
explanation  of  this,  his  first  visit.  He  took  the  boy  over  to 
the  bookshelves,  taking  down  book  after  book,  and  although 
he  did  not  interest  him,  for  Finn  was  always  too  much  occupied 
with  his  own  thoughts  to  be  too  deeply  interested  in  those 


68  GODS 

of  others  when  they  did  not  bear  directly  on  his  own,  it 
served  to  put  him  at  his  ease. 

Then  it  came  from  him.  He  told  him  the  story  of  the  ra- 
tionalist books  and  waited  for  the  tall  man  to  fall  on  him. 
Instead,  he  took  him  back  to  the  bookshelves  and  pointed  out 
to  him  upon  a  high  shelf  a  row  of  ashy  volumes.  "I  have 
them  all  here,"  he  said.  "And  many  more."  He  took  down 
a  handful.  "Here  is  one  you  must  read — 'Was  Christ  an 
Epileptic?'  and  this  other — 'An  Exposure  of  Roman  Cath- 
olicism.' You  shall  go  through  them  all." 

Father  Lestrange  looked  at  the  boy,  fleetingly.  "You  have 
read  Renan,  of  course?  You  must  read  his  'Life  of  Christ.' 
A  beautifully  sincere  book.  Well  written.  And  here  is  an 
old  friend— Tom  Paine.  And  Voltaire.  .  .  ." 

The  boy  was  used  to  this  strange  man,  but  he  hesitated  a 
moment  as  the  little  choking  question  came:  "But,  Father 
....  all  these  books  are  ....  rationalist  .... 
infidel  ....  what  ....  I.  ..."  He  broke  off. 

The  priest  with  that  gracious  gesture  of  his  waved  him  to 
the  hollow  of  the  horse-hair  arm-chair,  the  only  thing  of  com- 
fort in  that  austerity,  as  he  seated  himself  opposite  on  the 
straight-backed,  inflexible  piece  of  oak.  "I  know,  Finn,"  he 
said.  "I  understand.  But  I  want  you  to  read  all  those — 
all  of  them — and  when  you  have  read  them,  Finn,  for  I  know 
you,  you  will  be  several  steps  nearer  heaven.  If  my  Church 
feared  those  books — what  would  my  Church  be?  Infallible? 
Invulnerable?  She  would  only  be  the  mortal  staff  of  her 
opponents.  Read  them. 

"Rationalism  is  as  old  as  literature  itself,"  he  went  on, 
"older  even  than  Ecclesiastes.  Its  cold,  clear  light  has  again 
and  again  risen  upon  the  horizons  of  men  to  drive  away 
the  ghosts  of  the  ages.  But  the  ghosts  come  back." 

"But  the  Rationalists  say  there  is  no  hell,"  said  Finn,  hoping 
most  irrationally  that  hell  existed.  He  had  never  wanted 
that  before.  "They  say  there  is  no  fire  and  brimstone." 

"And  there  isn't,"  said  the  priest,  smiling  at  the  boy,  who 
felt  strangely  disappointed.  "The  rationalists  are  right.  Hell, 
like  heaven,  is  of  the  compass  of  the  human  heart,  in  which 
we  carry-  both — that  is,  it  is  broad  as  the  universe — circum- 
scribed as  the  chalice  of  passion  in  which  the  heart  is  con- 
.He  got  up  from  his  chair,  went  to  the  high,  white 


FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  69 

window  and  looked  out  against  the  blank  wall  opposite.  The 
dews  stood  dank  on  the  high,  white  forehead.  There 
was  memory  in  the  face.  He  turned: 

"The  word  is  but  the  husk.  There  are  so  many  ways  to 
understand." 

"But  your  church  teaches  there  is  a  definite  hell?"  said  the 
boy,  who  for  the  moment  was  angry  with  the  priest.  It  was 
the  old  uncertainty  stealing  back,  even  here  in  this  room  of 
certainty.  He  wanted  infallibility.  He  did  not  want  com- 
promise. 

"Why,  Finn,  you're  a  better  Catholic  than  I,"  said  the  priest. 
"My  church  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb.  Some- 
times it  has  to  speak  in  symbols,  in  allegory,  like  its  great 
Master.  'There  are  many  things  I  would  say  unto  you, 
but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now.'  Hell  may  be  none  the  less 
real  because  it  is  a  hell  of  thought.  You  ought  to  know  that, 
Finn.  Purgatory.  We  all  have  our  purgatories.  And  you 
should  know  that." 

There  was  a  spiritual  camaraderie,  an  understanding,  that 
was  subtly  delicious  to  the  boy.  The  Jesuit  had  taken  him 
up  to  his  level,  had  admitted  him  to  a  brotherhood  of  equal- 
ity, of  consciousness.  But  the  long  nose  and  the  green  eyes 
would  not  be  turned.  He  wanted  "Yes"  or  "No." 

"Then  you  don't  believe  in  hell — and  your  church  doesn't, 
Father.  Now  I  know  why  it  is  your  church  does  not  go  out 
into  the  street  like  the  Socialists — because  it  doesn't  believe. 
Why,  if  people  believed" — and  now  Finn  was  thoroughly 
roused  and  therefore,  as  always,  fearless — "they  would  rush 
out  into  the  streets  and  preach  like  mad  people  until  they 
fell  exhausted,  preach  like  John  the  Baptist.  If  they  believed 
that  the  cost  of  unbelief  was  eternal  torture,  without  hope, 
endless,  they  would  go  mad,  and  going  mad  would  save  them- 
selves. But  they  don't  believe." 

The  boy  sat  there,  stubborn,  contemptuous.  No  flattery, 
no  compromise,  could  ever  soften  the  white  heat  of  his  tem- 
per. That  white  flame  in  which  he  saw  all  things  clearly. 
He  at  least  did  not  believe  in  cool  head  and  cool  vision.  Vision 
came  in  flashes — out  of  fire. 

The  Jesuit  was  silent.  He  glanced  at  the  boy,  in  that  char- 
acteristic fleeting  way,  and  there  was  love  in  his  look.  Even 


70  GODS 

Finn,  catching  his  glance,  saw  that,  and  it  puzzled  him.  It 
did  not  mollify.  He  felt  he  had  to  go  on. 

"Belief,"  he  said.  "Nobody  believes.  Belief  is  only  for 
Sundays.  It  is  only  for  another  world.  Not  for  this.  Why," 
he  said,  and  he  could  be  very  rude  when  angry,  forgetting 
his  natural  shyness,  "the  very  building  in  which  we  are  was 
raised  by  that  horrid  old  Duchess  of  Duckleworth — and  every- 
body knows  what  her  life  has  been  and  how  she  treats  her 
tenants.  And  your  own  church  holds  her  high  and  takes  her 
money  and.  .  .  ." 

It  poured  out  of  him.  The  lack  of  consciousness  of  the 
world.  The  segregation  of  religion  for  Sundays  and  churches. 
The  unaccountable  shyness  of  speaking  about  what  should  be 
the  most  important  and  most  discussed  thing  on  earth.  The 
people  called  "socialists"  anyhow  saw  this.  He  had  heard 
one  of  them,  a  fiery  John  the  Baptist,  at  the  corner  of  the 
road  under  the  "Lord  High  Admiral."  He  had  shown  it 
up.  ... 

"Like  your  Rationalists,  Finn,"  said  the  Father,  speaking 
for  the  first  time.  "Eh,  Finn?" 

The  boy  was  silent.  Somehow  the  fires  of  his  rationalism 
which  had  blazed  up  again  under  the  bellows  of  his  indigna- 
tion were  damped.  Things  with  him  had  a  habit  of  sometimes, 
in  a  moment,  seeming  very  far  away — of  receding  like  things 
in  dreams.  That  had  always  been  so.  Rationalism  seemed 
only  the  echo  of  something,  as  he  sat  there. 

"Listen,  Finn,"  said  the  priest  gently,  and  he  looked  softly 
on  the  boy.  "There  are  more  ways  of  cheating  the  devil 
than  the  world  knows.  And  there  is  a  devil.  Mr.  Asthar  the 
other  evening  at  the  Tabernacle  was  right  in  that.  Satan  at 
least  is  no  figure  of  speech.  We  Jesuits  are  the  missionary 
priests  to  civilisation — ours  is  the  silent  propaganda.  To 
cheat  the  devil  we  have  often  to  play  him  at  his  own  game  and 
use  his  own  weapons,"  he  went  on,  as  though  half  speaking  to 
himself.  "Sometimes  we  even  use  him  to  defeat  his  own 
ends  ....  you  have  mentioned  the  Duchess,"  he  said, 
smiling.  "If  we  went  out  to  the  street  corner  and  threw 
revelation  at  the  heads  of  the  people,  it  would  cease  to  be 
revelation — it  would  only  be  mathematics.  The  one  thing 
that  the  people  of  our  times  cannot  bear  is  the  direct  state- 
ment— because  the  people  of  our  times  are  unconscious — un- 


FINN  WRESTLES  WITH  THE  DEVIL  71 

conscious  partly  because  they  are  living  in  an  age  of  flux,  an 
age  of  more  spacious  horizons,  of  greater  complex.  Even  a 
century  ago,  with  narrower  horizons,  men  had  a  greater  con- 
sciousness. Consciousness  always  means  limitation. 

"Unconsciousness  is  the  devil's  weapon  and,  like  the  devil, 
it  can  only  be  met  by  itself,  that  is,  by  the  weapon  of  the 
indirect,  the  suggestive,  but  this  weapon  can  only  be  wielded 
by  those  who  themselves  are  conscious.  Rationalism,  like 
Socialism,  is  the  religion  of  consciousness  using  the  direct 
statement  and  ignoring  the  subjective,  that  is,  the  spiritual, 
and  Socialism,  like  the  Rationalism  that  is  now  dying,  will 
one  day  also  die.  We  undermine  men's  souls — not  men's  in- 
tellects. The  change  in  intellect  is  the  change  mechanical — 
the  soul-change  is  a  change  of  substance. 

"Our  weapon  is  the  symbol — our  symbol  the  Cross — and  in 
that  sign  shall  we  conquer,"  he  went  on,  as  though  speaking 
more  to  himself  than  to  the  boy  opposite,  a  trick  he  some- 
times had  when  talking  to  Finn,  who  seemed  to  act  as  a 
stimulus  for  thoughts  that  even  he  himself  only  understood, 
"through  a  glass,  darkly."  "Our  dominion  is  over  the  souls  of 
men,  by  suggestion.  Our  kingdom  is  the  subjective — not  the 
objective — the  invisible,  not  the  visible.  The  symbolism  of 
the  High  Mass  at  Westminister  is  more  potent  to  conquer 
than  all  the  direct  ravings  of  the  Socialist  under  its  shadow." 
The  jaw  set.  The  eye  took  harder  lights. 

"But  we  do  not  hide  from  ourselves  that  the  final  battle 
will  be  between  the  direct  and  the  indirect — between  Socialism 
and  the  Church.  The  price  of  life  is  eternal  struggle — between 
the  dogmas  of  this  world  and  those  of  the  world  to  come. 

"We  shall  never  have  religion  in  the  counting-house.  We 
shall  never  have  religion  in  the  weekday.  We  could  never 
have  it  till  the  world  was  spiritually  conscious — and  the  world 
will  never  all  be  conscious,  for  spiritual  consciousness  is  only 
for  the  few  and  this  world  a  dwelling  place  for  imperfect  souls. 
Some  day  the  dominion  of  the  Church  will  extend  over  the 
whole  world — we  are  taught  to  believe  that — but  when  that 
day  comes  it  means  that  the  great  unconscious  many  will  have 
learned  to  bow  themselves  to  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  the 
few,  that  it  will  be  a  trained  consciousness — a  consciousness 
of  suggestion  from  above,  to  the  great  unconsciousness  below." 


72  GODS 

It  was  with  Finn  as  he  walked  down  the  winding  drive  from 
the  Seminary.  A  trained  consciousness — from  above.  And 
now  the  ashen  books  seemed  very  far  away. 

"He  is  wrestling  with  the  devil,"  his  father  said,  piously. 


VIII 


Mr.  Trevor  Titterling  crouched  over  the  kitchen  range  and 
cleaned  his  nails.  Occasionally  he  would  place  an  ochreous 
finger  inside  his  mouthful  of  very  white,  false  teeth,  with 
which  he  would  press  back  the  quicks,  viewing  them  afterwards 
through  his  ribbonless  monocle  with  a  pale  and  fishy  eye  to 
see  the  effect.  All  this  without  removing  the  dissipated  cig- 
arette stump  that  hung  from  the  corner  of  his  mouth.  Nobody 
had  ever  seen  Mr.  Titterling  with  a  whole  cigarette. 

The  scragginess  of  his  lower  extremities  was,  despite  the 
frosty  London  morning  outside,  draped  in  a  fine  grey  cash- 
mere, a  large  grease  spot  standing  out  on  the  left  knee.  His 
feet,  clad  in  silk  socks,  with  an  arrow  "clocked"  up  the  side, 
were  thrust  into  what  had  once  been  dancing  pumps,  a  "new 
potato"  showing  through  the  left  heel.  Mr.  Titterling  rather 
gave  a  general  effect  of  faded  magnificence. 

The  head  bent  towards  the  red  glow  showed  the  scanty 
nondescript  hair  parted  in  the  middle  and  coming  down  in 
horns  to  his  sorrowful,  pale  eyes.  His  nose,  high,  pale  Roman 
organ,  fell  over  his  weak,  humorous  mouth,  matching  the  eyes 
above.  His  very  high  collar  was  a  trifle  frayed  and,  in  spite 
of  its  gloss,  looked  dirty.  But  that  might  have  been  the  light. 
From  above,  there  came  a  low  voice  singing  as  it  moved  about 
the  house:  "...  a  fountain  filled  with  blood,  drawn  from 
Emanuel's  veins.  .  .  ." 

"Now  look  here,  young  John  the  Baptist,  chuck  it!"  he 
admonished,  humorously  blasphemous.  He  stopped  for  a 
moment  the  devil's  tattoo  which  he  had  begun  to  play  with  the 
poker  on  the  bars  of  the  grate,  as  his  third  youngest,  a  six-year- 
old  with  long  wire  hair,  who  was  engaged  in  an  attempt  to 
emulate  Cain,  assisted  by  his  elder  brother,  Plantagenet,  who 
for  dramatic  purposes  was,  at  this  very  moment,  Abel,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  avoid  Bluggins  the  bulldog  where  you  come 

73 


74  GODS 

round  by  the  fender,  had  gone  head  first  into  his  father's  ribs. 

Seymour  (the  Titterlings  had  a  weakness  for  fine  names) 
really  looked  a  John  the  Baptist.  You  could  almost  smell 
the  locusts  and  wild  honey  as  you  looked  at  his  hair,  and  his 
garments,  of  a  kilt-like  nature,  were  mere  superfluity.  Sey- 
mour, who  was  the  terror  of  his  brothers  and  sisters,  being 
said  by  his  father  to  be  possessed  of  a  devil,  always  played 
the  unpleasant  parts  from  the  bible,  which  was  the  only  mental 
food  of  the  Titterling  young,  such  as  Goliath  or  Cain.  Esau 
was  a  favourite  part.  He  was  a  very  hairy  boy.  Once  he 
had  tried  Herod  with  a  nearly  fatal  realism  for  the  two 
youngest.  Albemarle,  the  baby  in  arms,  had  a  near  go. 

Occasionally,  however,  "bears  and  lions,"  a  zoological  drama 
of  a  ravening  nature,  displaced  the  bible.  But  this  was  largely 
due  to  that  ghostly  cellar  beneath  the  house,  of  a  cave-like 
gloom,  which  had  obviously  been  made  for  the  purpose. 

The  other  two  boys  were  under  the  kitchen  table  making, 
in  the  words  of  their  progenitor,  a  hell  of  a  noise — "and  you 
just  wait  young  Larkin"  (that  was  the  second  youngest, 
named  after  a  prospective  uncle  who  had  hitherto  not  matured) 
"until  your  mother  comes  down — playing  on  Sunday." 

They  might  have  been  playing,  but  it  looked  like  the  real 
thing.  At  that  moment,  little  Elizabeth,  aged  four,  having, 
through  a  trifling  chronological  confusion,  as  a  Christian 
maiden,  been  abducted  by  Esau  the  Terrible,  disguised  as 
Larkin,  who,  for  purposes  of  actuality,  had  covered  his  arms 
with  a  pair  of  rabbit  skin  mats  tied  with  string,  but  who  loved 
Jacob,  in  this  case  Plantagenet,  her  body  was  now  being 
fought  for  by  both  gentlemen,  who  were  quietly  smothering 
each  other  over  a  supposedly  senseless  body  which  was  dis- 
playing unsuspected  qualities  of  nail.  They  weren't  afraid  of 
"father,"  who  had  only  to  be  feared  in  extreme  moments — as, 
for  instance,  when  he  was  out  of  cigarettes. 

Mr.  Titterling  drew  in  the  rest  of  his  cigarette  stump,  held, 
and  then  expelled  the  mixture  of  air  and  tobacco  from  his 
lungs. 

"Gawd's  truth!"  he  said,  jumping  into  sudden  energy — he 
could  be  very  East-endy  at  times,  from  bad  associations,  could 
Mr.  Trevor  Titterling— "Gawd's  truth!"  He  jumped  for  the 
table,  put  down  a  hand,  and,  after  fishing  a  little,  hooked 
young  Larkin,  dragged  him  into  the  light  of  day,  and  cuffed 


"BRANDS  FROM  THE  BURNING"  75 

him  on  what  he  called  "the  earhole."  He  then  took  him  by 
the  seat  of  his  obviously  reduced  father's  pants,  opened  the 
door,  and  flung  him  into  the  passage,  from  where  such  a  series 
of  howls  escaped  that  even  young  Seymour  was  held  up  in 
his  wild  career.  By  the  time  he  got  back,  the  kitchen  was 
empty,  except  for  Elizabeth,  who  sat  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor  showing  rather  more  red  drawer  than  was  perhaps  quite 
consistent  with  Christian  maidenhood. 

Mr.  Titterling  felt  in  his  pocket,  "drew  a  blank"  in  his  own 
words,  and  went  down  on  hands  and  knees  to  scrabble  for 
cigarette  stumps  in  the  firebox.  Having  got  one,  he  lit  it, 
with  the  calm  satisfaction  of  duty  done. 

"Shut  up!  you  little  devil,"  he  shouted  through  the  door 
to  the  howls,  which  suddenly  ceased.  There  was  a  noise  as 
of  cooing,  and  the  next  moment  the  door  opened  to  admit  a 
little  girl-mother,  still  in  her  first  decade,  with  grey  eyes  and 
hair  of  smoky-black,  leading  by  his  dirty  little  hand  the  now 
quietly  convulsive  Larkin,  who  exploded  at  intervals,  geyser- 
like. 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself,  father,"  she  said. 
"Just  look  at  Larkin's  ear.  You  know  what  I  said  before." 

Mr.  Titterling  looked  caught  in  the  act.  Depressed,  he 
mumbled  something  behind  his  cigarette  stump  and  hung  a 
trifle  more  over  the  fire.  His  eyeglass  had  disappeared,  as  it 
had  a  habit  of  doing  in  moments  of  abnegation. 

The  others  had  come  back  and  were  playing  quietly.  The 
little  mother  began  to  clear  away  the  dirty  breakfast  things. 
In  a  surprisingly  short  time  she  had  made  the  place  look  clean 
and  neat. 

"There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood.  .  .  . 

Drawn  from  EmanuePs  veins, 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  that  flood.  .  .  ." 

The  strains  in  a  tempered  alto  were  gradually  approaching. 
The  door  opened.  There  stood  in  the  doorway  a  sweet-faced, 
grey-eyed  woman,  her  hair  of  rippling  brown  smoothly  parted 
in  the  middle,  something  of  shining  wonderment,  of  revelation, 
in  her  eyes.  The  eyes  searched  out  her  husband,  now  look- 
ing sorrowfully  into  the  blaze.  A  straying  shaft  of  sunlight 
shone  upon  her  as  she  stood  there,  inscrutable,  her  figure  in- 
formed by  the  new  life  she  was  soon  to  give  to  the  world. 


76  GODS 

Mrs.  Titterling  had  been  married  to  her  husband  when  she 
was  seventeen  years  old  and  when  he  was  twenty-five.  She 
was  one  of  those  women  who  love  only  once,  and  for  ever — 
who  do  not  know  restraint  but  give  all  and  sanctify  sin  by 
sacrifice.  She  had  given  everything  she  had  to  give  to  her 
husband  before  she  married  him,  and  she  would  never  have 
married  him  and  would  have  died  brokenhearted  but  for  one 
of  his  moments  of  self-abnegation  and  repentance  which  made 
him  give  his  first  child  a  name  a  month  before  birth.  Since 
that  day  eighteen  years  ago,  she  had  borne  him  ten  children, 
of  whom  seven  were  left.  The  others  had  died  easily — of 
whooping  cough  and  pneumonia  and  in  one  case  at  least  of 
underfeeding,  for  the  Titterlmgs  had  not  always  been  fortunate 
in  their  choice  of  new  neighbourhoods  and  trusting  trades- 
men. 

How  her  husband  really  earned  the  bread  for  the  house, 
with  its  infrequent  butter,  Mrs.  Titterling  did  not  know.  Mrs. 
Titterling  was  one  of  those  women  who  never  know  anything. 
If  anybody  had  told  her — and  of  course  nobody  did — that  he 
was  a  billiard  "shark,"  irregularly  a  bookmaker,  with  a  flick 
of  the  cards  in  between,  it  would  have  had  no  more  effect  than 
if  she  had  been  told  that  Trevor  Titterling  got  his  living  by 
murder.  She  would  not  have  believed  it,  and  if  she  had  be- 
lieved it,  it  would  have  made  no  difference.  She  had  a  splen- 
did capacity  for  ignorance.  At  least,  if  she  suspected  any- 
thing, she  said  nothing.  She  only  knew  that  he  was  some- 
times away  for  days  at  a  time — especially  in  the  summer, 
when  he  would  go  out  dressed  in  a  box-cloth  coat,  a  high  white 
hat  and  white  waistcoat  with  a  pair  of  glasses  slung  round 
him,  and  return  home,  sometimes  in  a  devil  of  a  temper,  and 
sometimes  hilarious  but  conscience  stricken. 

That  was  Trevor  Titterling's  trouble,  he  could  never  quite 
free  himself  from  an  inconvenient  nonconformist  conscience. 
He  was  the  black  sheep  of  the  family — a  Strict-Baptist  family 
of  inexorable  theology  who  believed  that  in  total  immersion 
lay  the  only  or  at  least  the  chief  way  of  escape  from  hell. 
His  two  brothers  were  perfectly  respectable  members  of  society 
and  of  a  violent  religion — one  a  prosperous  west-end  dentist, 
the  other  a  Baptist  preacher. 

Trevor  was  only  admitted  to  the  paternal  roof  on  sufferance, 
and  the  the  fatted  calf  was  never  killed.  If  "godless  Trevor," 


"BRANDS  FROM  THE  BURNING"  77 

as  his  parents  called  him,  had  ever  given  them  occasion  to 
do  so,  they  would  have  been  considerably  amazed  and  perhaps 
considerably  annoyed,  for  he  had  fallen  quite  naturally  and 
satisfactorily  into  place  as  the  horrible  example.  He  was  cut  out 
of  his  father's  will,  he  knew  that,  damned  in  this  world  and 
of  course  damned  in  the  next,  and  the  worst  of  it  was  that 
he  personally  was  quite  as  assured  of  the  reality  of  the  latter 
damnation  as  of  the  former.  It  was  the  potent  "suggestion" 
of  the  first  years  of  life  doing  its  work — the  thing  that  also 
kept  him  a  teetotaler. 

He  had  been  apprenticed  to  medicine,  had  had  "a  shot  at" 
being  a  missionary,  but  a  green  cloth,  a  piece  of  ash,  and  three 
balls  of  ivory  had  upset  all  calculations.  "The  billiard  table 
is  the  road  to  hell,"  as  his  father  put  it,  and  Trevor  Titterling 
had  drifted  as  inevitably  into  billiards  as  some  men  drift  into 
medicine  or  missionaryship. 

He  had  aptitude  extraordinary  without  the  capacity  to  grind 
necessary  to  become  a  professional,  which  in  billiards  is  a  trifle 
less  difficult  than  to  become  a  violinist  of  the  first  rank.  From 
this  into  bookmaking,  and  then  into  various  phases  of  cards, 
ending  up  with  "find  the  lady,"  generally  known  as  the  three- 
card  trick,  was  a  natural  sequence. 

His  family  prayed  over  him  offensively  and  defensively,  and 
he  groaned  in  unison.  His  wife  prayed,  and  little  Mary,  the 
little  grey-eyed  mother,  prayed.  Member  of  the  Spirit's  Elect, 
an  offshoot  of  the 'Plymouth  Brethren,  with  a  dash  of  Cal- 
vinism, Mrs.  Titterling  had  the  melancholy  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  all  were  predestined — if  father  was  to  be  saved 
he  was  to  be  saved — if  damned,  then  damned.  His  family 
rather  felt  it  would  be  the  latter,  deriving  therefrom  a  cer- 
tain satisfaction.  His  wife  never  gave  up.  She  was  a  woman 
who  would  have  snatched  salvation  out  of  the  pit  itself. 

"Trevor,"  said  the  lady  in  the  doorway,  "will  you  not  dress 
yourself?  You  know  Finn  Fontaine  is  bringing  his  two  aunts 
this  afternoon  to  tea." 

"Oh!  bust  Finn  and  bust  his  aunts!"  said  Mr.  Titterling 
inexpressibly.  "I  haven't  got  any  Toddy's  Carnation  Flake. 
I  don't  dress  till  I  have  some.  Can't  Mary  go  out  and  get 
it?" 

"On  a  Sunday,  Trevor,"  said  his  wife,  reproachfully.  "On 
the  Lord's  Day."  She  looked  heart-broken. 


78  GODS 

"Oh!  bust  Sunday  too,"  said  Mr.  Titterling,  throwing  his 
eye-glass  into  his  eye. 

"You  know  Finn  is  the  loneliest  boy  in  the  world.  He 
knows  nobody  but  us.  Let's  be  ready  for  him.  He's  so  sensi- 
tive. He'll  think  we  don't  want  him." 

"Yes,  father,"  said  little  Mary.  "I  love  Finn.  He  is  my 
own  dear  boy." 

"Why  I  believe  you  are  in  love  with  him,  Mary,"  said  her 
father.  The  little  thing  blushed.  "Oh  Finn's  all  right.  He's 
a  good  sort.  But  I'm  not  myself.  Got  a  pain  in  me  stomach. 
Bust  it! "  Mr.  Titterling  was  a  martyr  to  pains  in  the  stomach 
and  the  head.  At  least  he  said  so. 

The  Mr.  Trevor  who  received  the  little  procession  in  the 
hall  some  four  hours  later  was  another  Mr.  Trevor:  he  was  a 
glossy,  not  to  say  dazzling,  Mr.  Trevor.  From  his  monocle 
to  his  patents — one  of  them  with  a  crack  over  the  little  toe — 
and  up  to  his  pomaded  hair,  he  shone.  His  wife  and  daughter 
looked  quite  drab  by  the  side  of  him. 

First  came  Aunt  Maria  with  Aunt  Judy's  nose  behind  swing- 
ing from  side  to  side  like  one  of  those  big-horn  rhinoceroses 
as  she  guided  Aunt  Maria  before  her,  that  lady  filling  up  the 
passage  and  only  revealing  Aunt  Judy  at  intervals.  Behind 
all,  Aunt  Bella,  her  Choctaw  feathers  dominating  the  passage, 
sniffing,  towering,  black-avised,  and  resenting  strongly.  She 
was  a  regular  witch-finder  and  smelt  another  brand  of  dissent 
from  her  own.  She  was  not  going  to  be  shepherded  into  a 
rival  fold,  unprotestant. 

Facing  them,  Mrs.  Titterling,  smiling  a  welcome,  a  little 
behind  her,  Mary,  all  eyes  for  Aunt  Bella,  and  behind  her 
again,  showing  a  mouthful  of  two-guinea  teeth,  not  paid  for 
and  worth  the  money,  Mr.  Titterling  himself,  who  had  for- 
gotten to  remove  the  fag-end  that  stuck  on  his  lower  lip  cor- 
ner. Mr.  Titterling  at  these  times  was  politeness  itself — a 
little  too  anxious  as  always  to  show  himself  a  gentleman  to 
be  a  gentleman.  It  was  something  in  him  that  always  dis- 
tressed Finn,  who  despised  and  liked  him. 

In  the  little  drawing  room  with  the  tiny  piano  and  the 
chairs  that  had  never  seen  better  days,  Aunt  Judy  revelled 
despairingly  in  her  latest  congregation — the  Spirit's  Elect. 
Aunt  Bella — sniff.  Aunt  Maria  fatly  sceptical.  But  all  the 
time  little  Mary  studied  the  tall  black-avised  aunt. 


"BRANDS  FROM  THE  BURNING"  79 

Aunt  Judy  rested  her  head  sideways  on  the  back  of  the  low 
easy  chair,  the  goat-like  eyes  looking  out  through  the  imita- 
tion French  windows  into  the  garden.  Her  sister  Maria,  who 
had  truncated  into  her  chair,  setting  herself  down  layer  by 
layer,  looked  out  vacantly.  Aunt  Bella  sat  bolt  upright,  her 
black  eyes  darting  from  side  to  side  without  turning  her  head, 
rather  like  a  gigantic  fox  terrier  on  the  look  out  for  rats. 
Mrs.  Titterling,  in  her  resigned,  sweet-faced  way,  waited  for 
an  opening. 

It  came.  Her  husband,  whose  mind  was  at  that  moment 
running  upon  the  scented  Carnation  Flake  cigarettes  he  hadn't 
got — he  had  a  tendency  to  "druggy  cigs."  as  he  said  him- 
self— but  who  smiled  excessively,  turned  to  Aunt  Judy: 
"Beautiful  weather  for  this  time  of  the  year,"  he  said,  look- 
ing vaguely  towards  the  French  window. 

"If  it  doesn't  rain,"  replied  Aunt  Judy,  who  was  in  a  pes- 
simistic mood. 

"Why  should  it  rain?  Don't  be  ridiculous,  Judy,"  said  her 
sister  Bella.  "Some  day  you  may  be  glad  for  a  drop  of  rain," 
she  remarked  cryptically.  She  sniffed.  It  was  one  of  Aunt 
Bella's  sniffing  days.  Aunt  Judy  laughed  her  little  heartbroken 
laugh  and  held  her  silence. 

"We  should  be  thankful,"  said  Aunt  Maria,  largely.  "If 
it  rains,  it  is  good  for  the  crops — if  it  doesn't  it  is  good  for 
us."  One  eye  wandered  in  a  trifle  towards  the  base  of  the 
nose. 

"True,  quite  true,"  said  Mr.  Titterling,  taking  a  very  dirty 
pocket  handkerchief  from  his  pocket  with  an  air.  "True." 
He  placed  his  high  Roman  organ  within  its  folds  and  trum- 
peted genteelly.  ("It's  a  bloody  awful  world,"  he  said  to 
himself.) 

"Some  day  we  shall  all  be  satisfied,"  remarked  Aunt  Maria 
piously.  "And  how  beautiful  that  will  be." 

("Yes,  when  there's  skating  in  hell,"  confided  Mr.  Titterling 
to  his  monocle,  which  he  had  dropped  into  his  left  hand  for 
cleaning  purposes.)  "Beautiful  indeed,"  he  said,  faintly  echo- 
ing to  the  unconscious  lady. 

"Oh!  how  beautiful  it  will  be  when  we  meet  in  a  better 
world,"  continued  Aunt  Maria,  encouraged,  and  developing 
quite  a  flow  of  conversation. 

"Take  care  we  don't  meet  in  Another  Place,"  jerked  Aunt 


8o  GODS 

Bella  vindictively,  in  a  dark,  prophetic  voice.  "Even  though 
Finn  is  too  clever  to  believe  in  it.  Rationalist  literature!" 
She  sniffed. 

Little  Mary  for  the  first  time  turned  her  great  grey  eyes 
from  Aunt  Bella  to  her  nephew.  She  looked  at  him  in  horror. 

"It's  not  true,"  she  said. 

The  little  assured  voice  fell  like  the  swing  of  a  sword  in  that 
atmosphere  of  constraint. 

"Crickey!  She's  put  the  kybosh  on  it!"  said  Mr.  Titter- 
ling  in  a  whisper  which  was  audible  to  Aunt  Bella,  who  had 
ears  like  a  lynx. 

"How  are  the  friends  opposite?"  said  Aunt  Maria,  muzzily 
diplomatic.  Paying  her  first  visit  to  the  Titterlings,  and 
knowing  nothing  at  all  about  it,  Aunt  Maria  had  conjured 
up  "the  friends"  from  her  well  of  good  intentions. 

"Finn,"  said  little  Mary.  "You  know  there's  a  hell,  don't 
you?" 

"He'll  know  it  some  day,"  said  Aunt  Bella,  sniffing  again 
and  jerking  her  head  downwards  in  the  way  that  she  had. 
The  scar  twitched  on  her  face.  "Won't  he,  Mrs.  Titterling?" 

"If  he's  predestined,  he's  predestined,"  said  Mrs.  Titterling 
with  that  calm  sweet  face  of  hers  as  she  looked  out  through 
the  window. 

"He's  predestined  to  salvation,  mother,"  said  Mary,  sol- 
emnly, and  then  compressed  tightly  her  little  red  lips. 

"How  do  you  know,  Mary?"  asked  Aunt  Bella,  her  eyes 
turning  sharply  on  the  child,  the  head  following  quickly.  "Do 
you  know  what  I  caught  Finn  reading?  'Was  Christ  an  Epi- 
leptic?' What  do  you  think  of  that?  Now  perhaps  you're 
not  so  sure."  She  looked  more  like  a  giant  fox  terrier  than 
ever — but  a  terrier  that  had  pounced. 

Mr.  Titterling's  glass  fell  into  his  lap  unheeded  and  rolled 
on  to  the  floor.  He  stared  at  Finn  in  dismay  uncontrollable. 

"Well,  I'm  damned!"  he  said  religiously  under  his  breath. 

Aunt  Judy,  her  great  nose  still  resting  against  the  back  of 
her  chair,  turned  one  eye  upon  Finn.  It  was  a  curious,  not 
a  frightened  eye. 

Mrs.  Titterling  sat  there  perfectly  sure  and  placid.  She  was 
not  shocked.  In  a  world  where  only  the  handful  of  the  Spirit's 
Elect  were  to  be  saved  and  where  everything  was  determined 


"BRANDS  FROM  THE  BURNING"  81 

from  the  beginning,  this  thing  did  not  matter — nothing  mat- 
tered. 

Finn  through  all  this  sat  without  speaking.  Now,  Mary 
had  moved  over  to  him,  stood  by  his  side,  and  placed  a  slender 
arm  around  his  shoulders. 

"I  don't  want  to  go  to  heaven,"  she  said. 

"Blasphemy!  blasphemy!"  said  Aunt  Bella.  "You  wicked 
child."  But  Mrs.  Titterling  sat  unmoved.  Her  husband  alone 
ventured  on  a  "Chuck  it!  Mary." 

"I  don't  want  to  go  to  heaven  if  Finn  won't  be  there,"  the 
little  thing  said. 

Aunt  Maria  sat  in  unspeakable  terror,  the  left  eye,  semi- 
eclipsed,  rolling  widely  and  independently  under  its  flickering 
eyelid.  "She  know  not  what  she  sayeth,"  she  murmured,  re- 
ligiously ungrammatical. 

The  child  had  clung  tighter  to  the  boy,  who  had  put  up  one 
big  bony  hand  over  her  arms.  "I  will  go  wherever  you  go, 
Finn,"  she  said,  tensely.  He  pressed  her  arm. 

"Better  to  be  in  hell  with  you,  than  heaven  with  those 
others,"  she  whispered  despairingly,  looking  at  Aunts  Bella 
and  Maria.  "Only  for  mother.  .  .  ."  She  broke  off,  wist- 
ful. "And  father.  .  .  ."  She  brightened.  "But  perhaps 
father  will  be  with  us  ....  and  perhaps  .  .  .  ." 
she  hesitated  one  breathless  moment,  "perhaps  God  would  let 
mother  come  to  us,  or  ...  let  us  come  to  mother.  Per- 
haps there  is  nothing  fixed  for  ever.  Perhaps  ....  if 
prayer  can  do  things  here,  why  not  there?  When  people  love 

She  looked  out  into  the  coldly  westering  sun,  a  light  in  her 
eyes. 

"Shall  we  pray?"  asked  Mrs.  Titterling  suddenly.  "Finn 
will  lead  us  in  prayer." 

"I'm  not  going  to  stay  in  any  place  where  an  infidel  prays," 
said  Aunt  Bella,  decidedly.  "Come,  Maria,"  she  said.  "Come, 
Judy." 

She  bowed  darkly  and  distantly  to  Mrs.  Titterling  and  went 
towards  the  door  with  the  art  muslin  curtain  over  it,  fol- 
lowed by  her  fat  sister,  who  was  obviously  in  a  mazy  con- 
dition, and,  as  she  said,  when  they  got  outside,  "ready  to  go 
off." 

Mr.  Titterling  sprang  to  his  feet  and  opened  the  door,  bow- 


82  GODS 

ing  ceremoniously  as  he  did  so,  his  politeness  being  marred 
by  young  Seymour  who  at  that  moment  dashed  along  the  hall 
in  one  of  his  forays  and  cannoned  Aunt  Maria,  who  promptly 
sat  down  in  the  passage.  (Aunt  Maria  always  went  to  earth 
in  moments  of  stress,  for  safety's  sake.)  Mr.  Titterling  picked 
her  up,  cursing  her  heartily  as  he  did  so,  under  his  breath,  his 
monocle  staring  glassy  at  her  bonnet  which  sat  over  her  left 

ear.     He  got  them  to  the  door. 

"It  is  a  beautiful  evening,"  he  said.  Aunt  Bella's  sniff, 
as  she  went  out  of  the  gate,  was  his  only  answer. 

But  Aunt  Judy  had  stayed  behind. 

He  went  into  the  kitchen  to  potter  for  cigarette  ends  in 
the  fender.  When  he  got  back  to  the  room,  Finn  was  shoot- 
ing out  three  inches  of  white  sock  from  his  foreshortened 
trousers  where  he  knelt  by  the  window,  praying.  Mrs.  Titter- 
ling,  her  face  sunk  in  her  hands,  her  beautiful  hair,  smoothly 
braided  down  over  the  white  slender  neck,  was  kneeling  by  the 
music  stool,  Mary  by  her  side,  her  smoky  hair  tumbling  down 
to  hide  her  face.  Aunt  Judy  was  kneeling,  but  he  could  see 
the  outline  of  her  nose  where  she  had  turned  to  watch  Finn 
through  her  hands. 

Mr.  Titterling  himself  looked  a  moment,  and  then  sank 
down,  stirred  by  those  emotions  which  swept  so  easily  over 
him,  placed  his  distinguished  organ  between  his  slender  white 
hands,  first  removing  his  eyeglass,  and  listened. 

"  ....  I  don't  believe  in  you,  oh  God,"  Finn  was 
saying.  "You  know  I  don't.  And  yet  I  do  believe.  I  don't 
believe  in  your  hell,  but  perhaps  I  believe  in  your  heaven. 
You  can't  threaten  me,  oh  God!  If  you  exist,  show  the  proof, 
the  light.  But,  oh  God!  I  want  love.  I  want  to  love — I 
want  to  save  the  world — to  save  myself.  .  .  ."  He  had 
passed  from  stereotyped  recital  to  that  blank  unconsciousness 
of  environment  which  sometimes  possessed  him,  in  a  voice, 
still  in  the  breaking  stage,  grotesque  in  its  sudden  jerks  into 
the  high  pitches  of  adolescence,  that  came  gustily  but  surely 
from  behind  the  two  big  lean  hands  which  stuck  themselves 
out  of  the  frayed  coat.  It  ceased.  Finn  had  remembered  that 
he  was  not  alone.  He  pressed  his  hot  blushes  back  into  his 
face. 

Mrs.  Titterling  had  risen.  She  had  come  over  to  the  boy 
who  now  stood  upright,  and  her  eyes  were  shining.  "Love — 


"BRANDS  FROM  THE  BURNING"  83 

Finn — "  she  said,  and  the  voice  trembled  a  little.     "Love. 
Yes — that's  it.     Perhaps  love  can  do  all.     Perhaps  love  is 
stronger  even  than  predestination." 

She  looked  out  into  the  dying  sun — and  a  veil  fell  over 
the  clear  shining  eyes. 


IX 

THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER 

Finn  Fontaine  was  in  the  scullery,  his  foot  on  a  high  rickety 
stool,  trimming  his  trousers  and  blackening  with  the  end  of 
one  finger,  which  he  inserted  gingerly  into  a  tin  of  blacking, 
a  crack  in  his  boot.  His  arms  had  pushed  themselves  a  trifle 
more  since  the  preceding  year  through  the  sleeves  of  a  morn- 
ing coat  by  which  the  Kensington  Clothiers,  Limited,  with 
branches  throughout  the  City,  had  justified  the  last  word  of 
their  title.  This*  was  unfortunate,  as  Finn's  shirts  had  passed 
the  stage  of  trimming  and  had  reached  that  other  when  the 
edges  become  serrated  torture.  In  the  winter,  his  wrists, 
unequal  to  the  strain,  sometimes  showed  tendency  to  fissure. 

The  occasion  was  important.  Crux,  Unlimited,  having  twice 
assured  him  of  their  disinterestedness  in  refusing  a  rise  to  a 
boy  of  eighteen,  which,  Parker  Crux  himself,  who  always  at- 
tended to  such  matters,  said,  upon  the  authority  of  his  father, 
had  been  known  to  send  youth  to  the  devil,  "cigarettes  and 
the  theatre  and  even  worse,"  Finn  had  been  writing,  literally, 
furiously.  He  would  have  written  anyhow.  He  could  no 
more  help  writing  than  talking,  because,  despite  an  unusual 
capacity  for  silence,  he  wanted  to  tell  the  world  what  he 
thought  of  it. 

That  is  to  say,  being  unjustifiably  elevated  by  the  printing 
of  his  first  article  on  the  Tabernacle  meeting,  he  had  sent 
several  others,  including  some  on  Ireland,  after  sundry  talks 
with  Father  Lestrange,  to  Lanthorn,  who,  the  novelty  of  a 
youth's  impressions  having  worn  off,  impressions  with  a  crude 
power  as  entirely  unsuspected  by  their  author  as  their  imma- 
turity, "did  not  want  any  more  just  now."  He  had  discovered 
that  the  original  editor  was  a  sort  of  gelatinous  but  tentacled 
creature,  which  clouded  itself  in  streams  of  inky  vagueness, 
with  a  maw  that  swallowed  everything  and  gave  out  nothing, 
and  which  for  each  tentacle  cut  off  by  the  victim,  that  is  the 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER  85 

literary  aspirant,  sprouted  two  in  its  place  to  draw  him  in  and 
choke  him  down  into  the  gulf  of  oblivion. 

In  spite  of  his  borrowing  the  office  paper,  which,  having 
a  narrow  conscience,  he  always  meant  to  replace  at  some 
future  date,  and  the  office  time,  which  from  Parker  Crux  he 
knew  to  be  invaluable  and  therefore  quite  irreplaceable,  in 
furtherance  of  his  literary  aspirations,  his  offerings  remained 
sacrifices.  He  did  not  spare  himself  troublesome  ingenuity 
either.  Sometimes  he  wrote  long  confidential  covering-letters 
to  his  editors,  and  sometimes  he  even  tried  to  bribe  the  Al- 
mighty by  promising  perfectly  impossible  performances  if  some 
particular  MS.  stayed  out,  always,  to  his  surprise,  without 
success. 

Amongst  the  many  things  he  could  not  understand  at  this 
time  was  why  "The  Churchman"  and  "The  British  Weekly" 
did  not  print  his  contributions  upon  churches  and  chapels. 
He  had  so  much  to  tell  them  about  Christianity  which  they 
obviously  did  not  know. 

Now,  Finn,  who  was  a  very  shy  but  very  desperate  boy, 
found  himself  impelled  to  one  of  those  periodic  determina- 
tions which  never  seemed  to  lead  anywhere.  He  was  about 
to  see  Lanthorn  himself  at  the  office  of  "The  Lanthorn." 

He  had  no  appointment.  Finn's  method  was  the  storm- 
method.  When  he  came  under  the  great  lantern  in  Chandos 
Street,  and,  entering,  presented  himself  outside  the  swing  doors 
in  his  abbreviated  morning  coat  and  trousers  with  the  bowler 
hat  that  perched  itself  loftily  upon  his  uncut  hair,  to  shadowily 
survey  the  interior,  the  commissionaire  kept  a  broody,  not 
to  say,  bodeful,  eye  upon  him. 

"Thought  'e  was  arter  the  gamps,"  he  said  afterwards, 
conscience-stricken,  as,  in  his  own  words,  "the  guv'nor  saw 
the  gent  first  blow-off." 

"The  guv'nor"  sat  behind  his  mahogany  with  that  far-away 
moist  eye  which  Finn  knew  from  the  Tabernacle  meeting. 
He  waved  him  to  a  chair  with  a  friendly  air  of  equality  which 
brought  the  boy's  heart  to  him,  and  rose  as  he  shook  hands 
with  him. 

Finn  told  his  story  of  failure  with  many  hot  blushes  and 
an  expenditure  of  perspiration  preposterous  upon  a  rather 
chilly  September  afternoon.  Lanthorn  listened.  "What  was 
he  to  do?" 


86  GODS 

Lanthorn  jumped  up  suddenly  with  a  quick  nervous  ges- 
ture. "I  was  just  going  out  to  see  Thrum.  Come  along  with 
me  and  get  the  advice  first  hand  from  the  man  who  holds  the 
world  in  the  net  of  his  newspapers." 

Finn  knew  that  the  man  opposite  him  had  interviewed  the 
Czar  and  the  Sultan  and  had  talked  to  both  like  a  journalis- 
tic father  confessor.  But  Thrum.  That  was  different.  Thrum 
wasn't  a  man,  but  a  newspaper.  Thrum  was  "The  Earth," 
the  newspaper  which  he  owned  and  edited.  Thrum  did  not 
call  his  paper  "The  Daily  this  or  that."  Just  "The  Earth." 
And  left  it. 

It  seemed  only  the  next  moment  that  he,  a  palpitating  and 
sweaty  Finn,  was  seated  with  Lanthorn  before  a  massive 
writing  table,  upon  which  stood  a  bust  of  the  German  Em- 
peror, whilst  two  yards  behind  stood  Thrum,  a  frockcoated 
man  with  shining  coal-black  hair,  parted  at  the  side  to  sweep 
formidably  down  across  the  brown,  stinging  eyes,  matching 
the  short,  crinkled  black  moustache  from  which,  clenched 
between  the  white  teeth,  jutted  craggily  a  long  black  cigar. 
He  was  one  of  those  tall  men  of  a  powerful  corpulence  with  a 
tendency  to  shortness  of  limb,  and  his  diminutive  hands  and 
feet  were  of  a  part  with  the  short  snub  nose  with  the  pugnacious 
lump  at  the  end.  He  had  an  ugly — that  is  the  only  adjective — 
jaw,  and  the  eye  above  was  luminous  with  power. 

But  the  thing  to  which  Finn's  attention  kept  returning 
was  the  lock  of  white  hair  which  almost  fell  into  his  eyes  and, 
lying  apart  from  the  rest,  had  a  personality  of  its  own.  He 
was  to  learn  that  this  lock,  the  index  of  the  great  man's  tem- 
per, was  in  constant  uproar  upon  Thrum's  head. 

Lanthorn  had  explained  the  presence  of  Finn,  towards  whom 
the  man  with  the  cigar  nodded  shortly,  and  then  both  he  and 
Thrum  had  forgotten  the  boy  in  a  conversation  which  seemed 
to  come  to  him  from  a  great  distance.  Finn  never  knew  how 
he  got  the  impression  that  Lanthorn  was  trying  to  induce  the 
great  man,  for  some  unexplained  reason,  to  tell  him  the  re- 
ligion behind  his  newspaper.  It  seemed  to  him  he  had  caught 
the  words — or  was  it  a  thought? — "  .  .  .  everything  and 
everybody,  every  newspaper  as  every  atheist,  has  a  religion. 
I  want  to  tell  the  world  in  the  columns  of  'The  Lanthorn' 
the  religion,  the  faith,  behind  'The  Earth'.  .  .  ."  Then  there 
had  been  another  interminable  stream  and  then  . 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER  87 

"We  pull  the  strings,  and  the  kings  dance.  I  have  my 
church  throughout  the  world — 'The  Earth'  is  its  temple.  A 
temple  not  made  with  hands — its  faith,  the  faith  imperial — 
the  faith  of,  in,  power — that  is  the  foundation  of  all  faith  and 
of  all  faiths.  But  that  is  not  for  publication." 

It  came  incredibly  out  of  the  maze  of  thought  which  had 
risen  in  the  boy's  mind — this  voice  of  low,  insistent  concen- 
tration. This  man  also  was  a  propagandist,  of  a  terrible, 
narrow  consciousness,  preaching,  like  Billy  Pickles,  a  new  faith. 

Then  he  remembered,  hazily.  It  came  to  him  like  the  sound 
of  distant  trumpets,  a  ghostly  fanfare  that  seemed  to  have 
run  through  all  the  leaders  he  had  ever  read  in  "The  Earth" 
that  was  his  father  and  mother's  second  bible.  Not  that 
Thrum's  name  ever  appeared.  It  was  kept  as  steadily  out  of 
the  columns  of  his  own  paper  as  his  picture  out  of  the  general 
press,  a  personality  that  held  all  the  threat  and  imminence  of 
a  ghost  before  materialisation.  But  the  rumble  of  the  voice, 
as  of  those  leaders,  was  Thrum's,  that  name  which  in  his  mind 
was  like  the  approach  of  one  of  those  big  express  engines 
when,  as  a  boy,  he  listened  to  them  with  ear  to  the  rails  as 
they  thundered,  still  invisible,  towards  him  over  the  sleepers. 
It  was  the  name  that  stood  for  religion  and  power — a  Fidei 
defensor  for  an  Imperial  Dogma  that  was  to  him,  still,  cloudy 
and  undefined. 

To  the  millions  who  read  it  on  the  waterless  plains  of 
Australia,  in  the  snows  of  Canada,  on  the  South  African  karoo, 
as  throughout  the  homes  of  the  mother  country,  the  man  with 
the  name  like  distant  thunder  stood  for  religion — for  the  em- 
pire— above  all,  for  power. 

The  voice  was  low.  Low  but  heavy  and  pregnant.  When 
he  spoke,  it  was  like  that  evening  with  Billy  Pickles — it  was 
as  though  something  behind  him  were  speaking.  He  stood 
there,  one  little  white  hand  grasping  his  cigar  as  it  might  have 
been  a  sword,  and  talked.  And  as  he  talked,  Finn  noticed  a 
terrible  concentration — but  also  a  terrible  genuineness.  This 
man,  he  knew,  was  an  idealist — would  give  the  last  half- 
penny of  his  millions  to  carry  through  the  thing  in  which  he 
believed.  Money  to  him  was  nothing — it  was  only  the  frank 
to  power.  The  attacks  upon  his  honesty  in  the  complacent 
columns  of  certain  newspapers  which  had  been  left  about  Ash 
Villa  by  his  Aunt  Bella,  who  subscribed  to  a  rival  organ, 


88  GODS 

seemed  like  the  pea-shooters  of  gamindom  against  a  strong 
man  armed. 

This  man  was  a  white  oxygen  flame,  so  tense  and  concen- 
trated that  he  could  have  melted  and  often  did  melt  the  locks 
of  that  poor  average  humanity  which,  in  order  to  keep  the 
solitary  treasure  of  its  soul,  it  instinctively  sets  against  the 
masters  of  its  destiny,  and  Finn  felt  something  of  this. 

He  was  afraid.  He  needed  all  his  self-belief,  that  splendid 
boyish  exaggeration  of  confidence,  to  prevent  himself  from 
being  cowed  into  running  from  the  place.  But  it  was  the  man's 
indifference  as  he  spoke  that  really  impressed  him  as  indiffer- 
ence always  impressed  him,  because  he  himself  was  indifferent 
to  nothing.  It  was  the  predestination  of  the  Spirit's  Elect. 
It  held  an  assurance  without  cavil. 

His  eyes  fell  absently  on  Finn,  fell  on  his  poor  clothes,  his 
singular  appearance,  and  Finn  wondered,  even  as  he  feared, 
how  he  dared  to  look  at  him  from  the  entrenchment  of  his 
well-fitting  clothes  and  his  millions.  There  seemed  some- 
thing shameful  in  it — shamefully  unfair. 

"And  your  young  friend?" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Lanthorn  as  though  coming  out  of  a  dream. 
"He  wants  to  write.  Doesn't  want  to  have  his  manuscripts 
returned.  He  says  he  writes  things  to  have  them  printed. 
Queer  fellow.  What  do  you  advise?" 

"What  does  he  want  to  write?"  asked  Thrum  as  though 
they  were  speaking  of  some  specimen  under  glass, 

"He  wants  to  write  on  the  Universe,"  said  Lanthorn,  a- 
twinkle. 

"Hum!"  rumbled  the  big  man.  He  took  out  a  crocodile 
skin  case  which,  like  his  clothes,  was  plain  but  good.  There 
was  nothing  ostentatious  about  Thrum  except  "The  Earth." 
After  he  had  offered  the  case  to  Lanthorn,  who  lit  the  strong 
cigar  with  gusto,  he  took  another  cigar  for  himself,  lit  it 
from  the  ashes  of  the  last,  and,  as  he  did  so,  fastened  that 
formidable  gaze  upon  Finn. 

"Better  stick  to  the  earth,"  he  said,  shortly.  "Safer.  I 
do." 

Finn  despised  him  for  his  earthiness,  but  the  "I  do"  angered 
him.  Did  Thrum  think  that  because  he  did  something,  Finn 
Fontaine  should  also  do  it?  That  was  preposterous.  But  he 
was  too  overawed  to  say  anything.  Overawed,  and  yet,  as 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER  89 

he  so  often  found  himself,  in  a  very  real  sense  unimpressed 
and  unconvinced. 

"Listen,  Lanthorn,"  went  on  Thrum,  still  with  that  air  of 
Finn's  non-existence.  "Did  you  ever  hear  of  the  'Chrysalis?' ' 

"You  mean  that  halfpenny  comic  that  I  am  always  catching 
my  office  boys  reading  in  office  hours?" 

"Yes — and  if  you  go  into  the  other  offices  of  this  country 
you'll  find  exactly  one  and  a  quarter  millions  of  other  office 
boys  doing  the  same. 

"It  was  away  back  in  the  days  when  fighting  was  fun. 
Now  it's  slaughter.  I  had  just  got  through  with  my  first  real 
success  —  that  crimson-covered  weekly  —  'The  Taleteller.' 
Bought  it  for  an  old  song — "  he  stopped  a  moment  to  look 
with  satisfaction  at  the  long  grey  ash  that  had  formed  on  the 
end  of  his  delicately  pointed  cigar.  He  continued:  "Well,  I 
started  the  'Chrysalis.'  Oh  I'm  not  ashamed  of  my  half- 
pennies— 'The  Earth'  itself  costs  only  a  halfpenny.  The 
British  Empire  rests  on  the  halfpenny. 

"Well,  the  'Chrysalis'  didn't  go.  But  its  editors  did.  I 
sacked  three  in  six  months. — Never  keep  a  failure  Lanthorn. 
Let  him  start  again  elsewhere.  Success  is  the  condition  of 
living. — One  day  there  came  a  knock  to  my  door  and  when 
I  shouted  'Come!'  I  found  a  youngster  of  sixteen  standing 
there.  A  white-faced  young  devil  he  was,  with  a  bright  eye 
and  pale  wispish  hair — all  nerves  and  eagerness.  'What  d'ye 
want?'  I  asked. 

"  T  want  the  "Chrysalis,"  Sir,'  he  said. 

"I  thought  he'd  been  drinking  or  something,  but  that  eye 
of  his  held  me. 

"What  do  you  want  to  do  with  it?"  I  enquired. 

"  'Want  to  make  it  go,'  the  young  devil  said.  'I'll  double 
its  circulation  in  six  months,'  he  says.  'Not  enough  blood' 
and  fun  in  it.  Too  moral,  Sir,'  he  said.  'I'm  an  office  boy 
meself.  I  know.' 

"I  reached  for  an  editor's  contract  form. 

"How  much  are  you  getting?"  I  said.  "What  are  you — 
office  boy  you  say?" 

"  'Yes  Sir— fifteen  bob.' 

"All  right,  we'll  call  it  five  pounds  a  week  plus  percentage. 
If  it  goes,  well  and  good.  If  it  doesn't  you  do.  Right?" 

"  'Quite  right,  Sir/  he  said. 


90  GODS 

"In  six  months  he  had  trebled  the  circulation  of  'The 
Chrysalis.'  In  twelve,  he  owned  a  motor-car — and  to-day,  he 
is  only  twenty-two,  he  has  a  couple  of  houses  and  is  thinking 
of  a  yacht. "  He  paused  a  moment,  looked  absently  at  Finn, 
and  added: 

"But  he  didn't  get  that,  writing  on  the  universe — he  held 
to  old  mother  earth." 

This  man  might  have  his  head  in  the  clouds,  as  mediocrity 
alleged,  but  he  had  his  feet  rooted  in  solid  earth. 

Finn  caught  the  note  of  omnipotence.  His  heart  sank.  He 
hated  this  man  with  a  sort  of  impersonal  hate,  but  he 
feared  him,  too.  He  recognised  in  him  an  enemy.  Not  his 
enemy,  but  something  more,  something  other.  He  felt  hope- 
less about  his  writing — that  writing  which  was  to  be  his  escape 
from  Crux — hopeless  about  everything.  He  only  wanted  to 
get  on  the  other  side  of  the  door,  which,  however,  solved  his 
troubles  by  opening. 

A  smart  young  white-haired  secretary,  frock-coated  and  a 
respectful  echo  of  his  master,  entered  the  room  and  held  a 
card  on  a  level  with  Thrum's  eyes.  Thrum  glanced  and  called: 

"Come  right  in,  Asthar.  Here's  Lanthorn.  Tells  me  you 
raised  hell  the  other  evening  at  Billy  Pickle's  circus.  Come 
right  in." 

But  it  was  not  a  man  who  came  through  the  doorway.  It 
was  a  girl,  a  girl  with  something  hollow-cheeked,  hollow-eyed, 
that  reminded  Finn  of  an  engraving  of  Eve  he  had  once  seen 
in  an  old  bible  commentary,  beloved  of  his  grandmother. 

She  stood  for  a  moment,  hesitating,  looked  from  Thrum  to 
Lanthorn  and  passed  through  Finn,  who  had  risen  awkwardly 
with  some  misty  memories  of  "Manners  for  Men"  in  his  mind. 
He  had  had  social  ambitions,  had  Finn. 

She  was  a  girl  with  a  curious  length  of  line,  although  she 
was  little  if  anything  above  middle  height.  Everything  about 
her  was  slenderly  graceful.  As  she  moved,  her  dress  of  some 
fine  blue  cloth  revealed  unsuspected  beauties  of  limb. 

As  she  moved  quickly  across  the  room,  where  the  sun  com- 
ing through  the  window  seemed  to  tangle  itself  in  the  hair 
of  bushy  tawn  that  was  cut  short  to  the  neck,  her  eyes  to 
Finn  were  as  darkling,  shining  water  upon  which  a  shaft  of 
sunlight  is  lying,  with  a  gleam  of  blue  like  the  flash  of  a  king- 
fisher's wing  as  it  slants  across  it. 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER  91 

There  was  something  shy,  yet  bold,  about  her  as  she 
went  up  to  Thrum  and  held  out  her  hand  with  a  queer  little 
impulsive  gesture. 

"Here,  Thrum,"  said  the  big  man  in  the  doorway,  who  had 
come  a  little  behind,  "Fve  brought  Deirdre  here  because  she 
insisted.  What  do  you  think  she  wants  to  do?" 

"What?"  said  Thrum  smilingly  as  he  threw  away  his  cigar. 

"She  wants  to  write." 

"What,  another?"  said  Lanthorn,  who  had  shaken  hands 
with  both  as  with  old  friends.  They  all  ignored  poor  Finn, 
who  had  shrunk  back  into  a  corner  but  who  felt  anger  at  heart. 
He  hated  them  all,  this  girl,  Thrum,  and  especially  the  big 
man. 

"I  don't  know  what  my  father  will  say,"  went  on  Paris 
Asthar.  "He  disapproves  strongly  of  girls  writing  or  doing 
anything  but  looking  picturesque.  However,  if  you  know 
Deirdre  you'll  know  it  doesn't  much  matter  what  he  thinks. 
With  Deirdre  nothing  matters  except  ....  Deirdre." 

All  at  once  he  turned  to  catch  sight  of  Finn,  in  the  corner, 
his  eyes  fastened  on  the  others.  The  prominent  eye  softened 
with  understanding.  He  saw  the  neglected  boy  with  the 
awkward  arms  in  the  ill-fitting  clothes,  and  in  a  moment,  Paris 
AstlTar  who,  for  all  his  vanities,  never  left  misery  untouched, 
turned  half  towards  Lanthorn,  enquiring. 

Lanthorn,  who  seemed  to  be  coming  out  of  one  of  his  day- 
dreams, recollected  himself.  "Mr.  Fontaine,"  he  said.  "A 
young  friend." 

"Glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Fontaine,"  said  the  big  man,  going 
up  to  Finn  and  pressing  his  hand.  "You  have  a  distinguished 
name.  One  of  my  French  ancestors  was  a  Fontaine." 

Finn  put  out  a  clammy  hand,  the  sweat  bursting  from  his 
forehead.  He  found  it  enclosed  in  one  that  was  warm  and 
dry. 

"My  sister,"  said  Paris  Asthar. 

Deirdre  bowed  distantly  and  a  trifle  contemptuously.  At 
least  Finn  thought  so,  and  sweated  again.  He  hated  her. 

The  face,  with  its  rather  short,  straight  nose,  softened  as 
it  turned  to  Thrum,  with  that  half  shy,  half  impulsive  way. 

"Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?  as  the  Americans 
say,"  she  asked,  challenging  Thrum. 


92  GODS 

"What  do  you  want  to  do,  Miss  Deirdre?  Write  for  'The 
Earth?'  "  He  said  it  in  a  way  that  left  no  doubt  as  to  where 
he  thought  his  paper  stood.  It  was  "The  Earth." 

The  girl  looked  out  at  him,  made  as  if  to  speak,  hesitated, 
and  then  said,  urgently: 

"You  needn't  imagine  your  'Earth'  is  above  the  contribu- 
tions of  imperfection.  The  earth  is  not  meant  to  be  perfect — 
not  even  your  'Earth' — it  is  a  place  of  passage  for  imperfect 
souls  ....  like  you,  and  me,"  she  added  after  a  moment, 
laughing. 

The  big  man  was  about  to  say  something.  For  all  his  'smile, 
there  was  thunder  in  his  eyes. 

But  the  girl  had  drawn  in  to  herself  again,  hiding  behind 
the  veil  of  her  hair  which  she  shook  around  her  face. 

"There  is  somebody  else  here  who  wants  to  write  for  'The 
Earth,'  "  inserted  Lanthorn,  looking  towards  Finn. 

"Oh,  that,"  said  the  girl  disdainfully,  peering  out  of  the 
veil  of  her  hair  for  a  moment.  It  was  a  pity.  It  spoiled  all 
the  beauty  of  her  face,  which  lost  its  soft  flexibility,  its  lights 
and  shades. 

"Oh!  I'm  so  hot,"  she  said  impulsively.  "I'm  going  to 
take  off  my  hat." 

And  take  it  off  she  did  without  further  comment,  throwing 
it  down  on  the  table  and  shaking  back  the  hair  from  her  eyes, 
to  show  the  delicate  curves  of  brow  and  a  new  pair  of  eyes 
which  now  had  something  of  hazel-grey  in  them.  She  was 
like  a  spoiled  child.  But  Thrum  only  laughed. 

Finn  had  drawn  back  into  himself  again,  not  knowing 
whether  to  go  or  to  stay.  He  felt  profoundly  miserable  but 
unafraid,  as  he  looked  at  the  back  of  the  slender  blue  figure 
crowned  by  its  tawny  halo.  To  him  she  was  the  incarnate 
presentment  of  all  that  he  had  ever  hated — fine  clothes  and 
fine  houses  and  leisure  and  cultivated  voices  and  manicured 
nails  and  perfume — especially  perfume — he  could  catch  it 
stealing  to  him,  impalpable,  from  her  body. 

And  there  was  Thrum.  Yes,  he  owned  'The  Earth,'  but 
he  did  not  own  the  soul  of  a  single  man  who  could  hold 
himself  free.  And  Asthar,  now  fanning  himself  luxuriously 
in  the  overheated  room  as  he  lounged  in  his  chair — that  was 
the  young  spendthrift  who  was  the  talk  of  London,  about  whom 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER  93 

the  papers  were  always  hinting  dreadful  unknown  things  on 
which  Finn  had  puzzled  so  often.  Yes,  he  was  another  de- 
generate. 

And  then  it  all  seemed  ridiculous.  Thrum  was  no  degen- 
erate but  a  man  of  formidable  strength.  And  Asthar  .... 
he  had  spoken  kindly  to  him — he  could  no  more  hate  him  than 
he  could  hate  Lanthorn.  Yet  he  hated  them  all — except  Lan- 
thorn.  But  that  was  a  sort  of  spleen — -an  unreasoning  spleen 
from  which  he  had  always  suffered. 

"What  do  you  want  to  write?"  Thrum  was  saying  as  he 
came  out  of  himself.  "I  want  new  blood.  I  want  youth.  I 
am  youth's  man."  He  was  looking  at  Finn  as  he  said  it. 

It  was  as  though  he  had  been  galvanised.  It  was  oppor- 
tunity knocking  at  his  door.  Oh!  to  let  her  in  before  it  was 
too  late.  He  felt  as  he  had  felt  in  his  nightmares,  as  he  felt 
with  that  veiled  dream  figure  he  followed  down  the  twisty 
lane.  He  choked  a  moment 

But  the  girl  had  made  as  if  to  speak,  coming  out  once 
more  from  the  veil  of  her  hair.  She  should  not.  She  should 
not  get  in  his  way.  For  the  time,  Finn  was  a  crushing  de- 
structive animal  which  would  have  killed  anything  that  got 
in  its  path.  He  had  a  kind  of  frenzy  against  this  dilettante — 
this  girl  who,  rolling  in  money,  only  wanted  to  pass  her  time. 
To  him,  his  writing  was  life  and  death.  It  meant  something — 
not  to  himself  but  to  the  world.  There  was  so  much  he 
wished  to  say. 

Then  it  came,  full-mouthed:  "Let  me  write  on  Ireland!" 
he  erupted.  "My  grandmother  has  talked  to  me  about  nothing 
else  since  I  was  a  baby.  And  Father  Lestrange,  who  is  an 
Irishman,  has  told  me  much  more.  I  read  your  leaders  every 
day  on  Ireland,  Mr.  Thrum.  My  father  reads  'The  Earth.'  " 
— He  hesitated  an  instant,  then  blurted  it  out:  "They  are 
nonsense.  I  don't  know  why — but  they  are  nonsense.  They 
are  old.  You  want  youth — why  don't  you  let  youth  write? 
I  know  nothing  of  Ireland  direct,  but  your  leader-writer  knows 
less." 

"Pity  my  poor  father!"  murmured  Paris  Asthar.  "If  he 
could  only  be  here.  Shades  of  Delphi!  (It  was  old  Asthar 
who  wrote  the  Irish  leaders  for  Thrum.) 

"What  do  you  know  about  Ireland?"  asked  Thrum. 


94  GODS 

"What  do  I  know?  I  know — I  know.  .  .  ."  Then  it  came 
to  him  that  he  did  not  know  ....  yet  he  did  know. 

"I  know  everything."  The  words  came  blatant,  shameless. 
It  was  as  though  old  voices  were  speaking  to  him  and  through 
him.  It  was  as  though  the  things  of  a  dead  past  were  whis- 
pering to  him.  "I  am  going  to  Ireland  for  my  holidays,"  he 
said.  "Let  me  write." 

The  girl  surprised  out  of  her  Idisdain  had  partly  turned  to 
look  at  this  strange  incursion.  This  ridiculous  scarecrow  of  a 
boy  with  his  bony  arms  and  foreshortened  poverty,  standing 
there  talking  like  a  mad  thing.  She  looked  at  him  a  moment, 
the  little  lips  half  opened,  the  eyes  bright.  Then  she  turned, 
disdainful,  to  her  former  position. 

"Let  him  write,"  said  Lanthorn.  "He'll  do  it.  I'll  put 
my  head  on  it.  And  I  have  seen  some  of  his  Irish  stuff.  I 
never  made  a  mistake  yet  about  a  writer.  .  .  .  It  is  not 
he  who  will  write,"  he  said  in  the  allusive  way  he  sometimes 
had.  "There  will  be  others  behind." 

"Yes,  let  him  write,  Thrum,"  said  Asthar.  "Give  him  a 
chance.  You've  never  been  talked  to  like  that  before,  have 
you?" 

"All  right,"  said  Thrum,  looking  at  Deirdre  Asthar,  but 
speaking  to  Finn,  and  thinking  of  how  often  he  had  made  sim^ 
ilar  mad  experiments  and  how  often  they  had  succeeded. 
"Send  me  some  articles  upon  the  Irish  question.  I  don't  guar- 
antee to  print  them,  but  I  will  consider  them."  He  hesitated 
a  moment. 

"But  what  is  The  Irish  storm-centre  to-day?  It  is  always 
shifting?" 

"Dunhallow,"  said  Asthar's  half-sister,  putting  her  head  out 
for  a  moment.  "That  is  where  I  was  born." 

"I  say,  old  chap,  you  come  to  my  place  in  Westminster 
after  your  return.  I'd  like  to  have  a  talk  with  you,"  said 
Paris  to  the  boy  whose  pulses  were  hammering. 

All  at  once  the  girl  put  her  hand  out  as  though  to  check  him. 
"No — no!"  she  said  as  though  half  to  herself.  She  flushed 
to  her  eyes. 

And  thus  was  joined  the  battle  for  the  soul  of  Finn  Fon- 
taine, though  only  one  person  there  knew  it,  and  that  was  not 
Finn, 


THE  FIGHT  FOR  POWER  95 

But  what  could  you  expect  a  boy  to  know  who  did  not  dis- 
cover until  long  afterwards  that  when  he  thought  Thrum  had 
been  speaking  to  him  as  he  asked:  "What  do  you  want  to 
write?"  because  he  had  been  looking  at  him,  Thrum  had  really 
been  speaking  to  Deirdre  Asthar. 


PART  II 
IRELAND 


X 

IRELAND 

John  L.  Crux,  Unlimited,  had  had  his  eye  on  Ireland. 
Hitherto,  he  had  only  had  his  eye  on  the  world.  It  was  a 
hard,  grey,  bitten  eye.  There  it  stood,  as  he  looked  at  the 
map,  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  Europe,  its  heart,  despite  the 
four  millions  it  had  sent  across  the  Atlantic  as  hostages  to 
fortune,  as  untouched  by  Big  Business  as  though  its  inhabi- 
tants lived  on  another  planet.  Ireland  had  to  be  gathered  in. 
John  L.  Crux,  with  business  houses  in  London  and  New  York, 
from  which  he  controlled  operations  of  a  delicate  complexity, 
was  the  man  to  gather  it. 

"Big  Business,"  he  said  into  the  long  face  of  his  son  Parker, 
who  sat  on  the  other  side  of  his  desk  gnawing  his  underlip 
and  patting  into  position  one  refractory  hair  across  the  high, 
hatchet-shaped  dome,  "will  be  the  saviour  of  Ireland."  He 
spoke  with  a  certain  solemnity.  "The  Lord  is  on  the  side 
of  big  business  ....  look  how  it  succeeds."  The  argu- 
ment was  unanswerable. 

"I've  had  my  eye  on  the  south  for  some  time.  It's  rather 
outside  the  business  of  the  firm,  but  I  think  a  few  hundred 
thousand  dollars  sunk  in  the  herring  fishery  with  a  plant  for 
drying  the  fish  is  going  to  give  cent,  per  cent.  It's  a  sure 
thing.  We  could  knock  Scotland  out,  Parker.  The  Irish  are 
a  lazy  lot  but  they  haven't  learned  the  tricks  of  Trades  Union- 
ism ....  as  yet.  Fellows  there  think  they're  doing  well 
when  they  pull  down  five  dollars  a  week,  I'm  told.  Do  'em 
good  to  work  'em  hard.  It's  a  great  chance  for  them — and 
for  us." 

The  eye  of  granite,  a  tiny  light  in  it,  screwed  itself  out 
into  Salisbury  Circus,  as  though  it  would  bore,  gimlet-like, 
through  space,  the  jaw  set  into  its  socket  with  a  click  that 
might  have  been  the  false  teeth  but  might  have  been  bone, 

99 


ioo  GODS 

itself.  One  sinewy  hand  clutched  the  edge  of  the  desk,  until 
the  long  nails  marked  the  mahogany. 

"There  are  blackberries  and  mushrooms — jam  factories — 
pickle  factories  .  .  .  .  "he  added  irrelevantly. 

Parker's  jaw  fell  a  trifle  over  the  high  white  collar,  under 
which  the  tie  adjusted  itself  in  millimetres.  It  was  his  way 
of  nodding. 

"There's  a  place  called  Black  Rock."  The  old  man  pointed 
it  out  on  the  map  before  him,  a  queer  little  nick,  due  south. 
"I'm  told  they're  a  barbarous  lot  down  there — call  'em  the 
Black  Rock  Turks — speak  only  Irish.  Papists."  The  last 
word  came  from  the  steely  jaws  as  though  it  were  vermin  that 
had  escaped. 

"We'll  send  Slick  over.    Make  'em  Primitive  Christians." 

He  went  on  as  though  it  had  only  been  an  interjection, 
as  he  passed  one  hand  back  the  length  of  his  hairless  skull 
and  nape.  "Heavy  weather  down  there — dangerous  coast — 
these  Turk  fellows  go  out  in  their  half  decked  boats  to  wrecks 
— see  what  they  can  get  their  hands  on,  I  expect — and  make 
a  good  living  by  it  and  by  life-saving."  The  voice  was  like 
a  saw.  "Fine  fishermen,  but  apt  to  get  their  clumsy  boats — 
'hookers'  they  call  them — dashed  to  pieces.  They  want  new 
boats.  New  gear.  What  they  want  is  Steam!"  He  paused 
a  moment.  "Steam  and  a  breakwater.  Should  like  to  elec- 
trify them,  but  they're  too  far  back  for  that.  There's  money 
in  it,  Parker.  And  the  saving  of  souls." 

It  sounded  a  queer  mixture,  but  the  man  who  was  speak- 
ing was  in  deadly  earnest.  One  had  only  to  look  at  his  face 
to  see  that. 

"To  the  glory  of  God!  Crux,  Unlimited,"  said  Parker,  his 
long  white  face  breaking  up  like  the  ice  on  a  pond  under  a 
sudden  thaw.  It  was  not  a  smile.  It  was  a  break  up.  Just 
that.  It  was  his  nearest  approach  to  humour,  and  it  hurt. 

The  recalcitrant  hair  was  now  in  place.  He  folded  one 
smooth  white  hand  over  the  other  and  laid  them  both  upon 
the  striped  trousering  that  draped  his  long  thighs. 

"Whom  shall  we  send?"  It  was  Parker  speaking.  "We 
only  want  an  intelligent  underling  to  spy  out  the  land  and  give 
us  a  general  idea  in  the  beginning." 

"That's  settled.  Here's  a  letter  from  Thrum.  Got  a  hunch 
to  send  young  Fontaine  to  Ireland  to  write  for  'The  Earth,' 


IRELAND^-  .-•'. 

I  don't  know  many  of  our  people,  not  half  a  dozen  in  a  hun- 
dred, and  wouldn't  know  young  Fontaine  only  that  I've  seen 
him  taking  down  your  letters  once  or  twice.  Didn't  know 
he  could  write — did  you?" 

Parker's  long  face  took  on  a  shocked  expression.  "I'm 
afraid  Fontaine  has  been  neglecting  his  work.  I've  used  him 
at  a  pinch  when  Miss  Potts  was  ill.  A  queer  fellow.  Heard  him 
one  day  holding  forth  on  art  to  a  youngster  named  Jackson 
in  my  department.  Thinks  himself  an  artist.  Says  artists 
are  different  from  all  other  people.  My  conviction  is  that  he 
has  been  writing  on  the  sly.  Young  fool.  .  .  ." 

"  'He  that  calleth  his  brother  a  fool  .  .  .'  "  interrupted 
his  father.  He  said  it  solemnly  enough. 

"Sorry,  father."  A  faint  flush  stole  to  the  white  cheeks  be- 
fore him.  The  thin  lips  muttered  a  moment  as  though  in 
prayer.  "I  mean  a  fool  to  his  own  interests.  And  besides, 
it  is  rank  dishonesty  tiring  himself  out  at  night  and  so  giving 
the  firm  poor  service  the  next  day.  Though  I  must  say  Fon- 
taine works  hard  enough,"  he  added,  obviously  trying  to  be 
fair.  "But,  how  would  I  put  it?  .  .  .  .  his  heart  is  not 
in  his  work." 

"Well,  Thrum  tells  me  that  the  boy  is  going  to  Ireland  for 
his  holidays  and  wants  us  to  give  him  an  extended  vacation. 
We  couldn't  refuse  Thrum  if  we  would.  His  'Earth'  helped 
us  with  that  disgraceful  strike  at  the  Sulanda  works.  And 
he  wants  him  to  go  to  a  place  called  Dunhallow  which  is  the 
nearest  town  to  Black  Rock. 

"Now  I'm  going  to  give  this  boy  the  chance  of  his  life. 
He  has  Irish  blood  in  him  and  therefore  he  has  brains," — Crux 
spoke  with  all  the  American's  admiration  for  the  Irish  race — 
"and  he  shall  go  over  and  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone.  For 
us  he  shall  report  on  Black  Rock  and  its  possibilities.  If  he 
does  it  the  right  way,  he  is  a  made  man." 

John  L.  Crux  spoke  like  a  man  who  knew  himself  to  be 
possessed  not  only  of  all  the  attributes  of  Benevolence,  but, 
the  thing  that  mattered,  the  power  to  give  them  effect. 

And  so  it  was  arranged. 

Before  Finn  went  to  Ireland,  he  called  on  Mrs.  Titterling 
and  his  little  friend,  Mary,  to  say  good-bye.  The  immediate 
result  was  that  Mrs.  Titterling  took  him  into  the  back  draw- 
ing-room and  prayed  with  and  for  him  as  for  one  who  was 


GODS 


going  to  the  home  of  "the  Scarlet  Woman."  There  were  also 
points  in  her  supplication  at  the  throne  of  grace  over  which  she 
hovered  in  prayerful  doubt,  from  which  Finn  inferred  that  Mr. 
Titterling  had  had  "a  good  day,"  with  corresponding  uneasiness 
even  to  his  unsuspecting  spouse,  whose  eyes  were  beginning  to 
open  under  an  unwonted  succession  of  bank  notes. 

So  far  as  Finn's  family  was  concerned,  it,  generally  speaking 
and  always  excepting  his  little  grandmother  and  Aunt  Judy, 
who  was  in  one  of  her  flaunting  desperate  stages  and  there- 
fore, according  to  Mr.  Titterling's  liberal  interpretation  of 
her  mood  "didn't  care  a  damn,"  regarded  him  very  much  as 
though  he  were  going  into  the  West  African  bush.  His  mother 
talked  about  the  "wild  Irish,"  especially  before  his  grand- 
mother, who  looked  across  at  the  hard  brown  eye  in  her  soft- 
eyed,  glistening,  prayerful  way.  Jemmy,  despite  a  sneaking 
sympathy  with  his  mother,  really  believed  his  wife  to  be  cor- 
rect and  viewed  the  experiment  with  a  doubtful  eye.  So  far, 
Finn  had  said  nothing  about  Thrum. 

Ireland,  in  spite  of  "that  great,  good  Mr.  Crux"  and  his 
interest  in  it,  came  to  Mrs.  Fontaine  as  a  place  where  people 
bedded  with  the  pigs,  lived  exclusively  upon  a  potato  diet 
(the  skins  played  a  prominent  part  in  her  imagination,  if  not  as 
an  edible,  then  as  clothes  —  she  was  not  sure  which),  and 
were  Romanists  of  an  order  not  far  removed  from  the  heathen 
themselves,  with  a  tendency  to  landlord  shooting  by  moon- 
light and  general  subversive  low-typed  rebellion.  For  her 
part,  she  always  saw  the  Irishman,  a  long-lipped,  slightly  supe- 
rior modification  of  the  gorilla,  in  knee  breeches  and  lidless 
topper,  crossed  by  a  dirty  clay  pipe,  crawling  behind  ditches 
with  a  blunderbuss  loaded  to  the  muzzle  with  rusty  nails, 
and  always  under  a  full  moon. 

But  little  Mary  Titterling  had  pulled  his  head  down  and 
had  kissed  him  gravely  on  the  lips  as  she  whispered:  "I  wish, 
Finn  dear,  you  could  take  me  to  Ireland.  I  love  Ireland.  I 
once  had  a  book  of  Irish  Fairy  Tales  but  mother  took  it 
away."  She  had  pressed  herself  against  him  in  her  child- 
passion,  and  had  then  run  out  of  the  room. 

And  so  it  Was  that  Finn  Fontaine  came  one  evening  of 
golden  September  into  Dunhallow,  where  it  lay  in  grey  and 
gold  under  the  purple  shadows  of  Croagh  Cromlech.  As  the 
toy  train  with  the  green  engine  puffed  its  way  from  between 


IRELAND  103 

the  bluffs  out  into  the  sunlight  of  an  old  stone  causeway  which 
spanned  the  tideway,  he  saw  stretched  before  him  the  spacious 
calliper-like  sweep  of  Dunhallow  Bay  lying  in  its  opalescent 
greens,  shot  by  the  fires  of  the  sun,  with  the  black  menace  of 
the  head  of  Carrickmore  bounding  it  on  the  right,  with  a 
spawn  of  white-washed  cabins  clustered  like  mushrooms  at  its 
foot.  On  the  other  side  of  the  bay,  the  low  dear  country 
running  to  the  left  point  of  the  callipers  where  the  white  light- 
house stood  like  a  ghost  by  the  edge  of  the  sea.  Between 
the  points,  in  midchannel,  the  black  shadow  of  the  Carrick- 
dhuv  rock  showing  its  fangs  above  the  eternal  hiss  and  roar  of 
the  tides  that  even  in  dead  calm  muttered  uneasily  upwards 
from  the  cauldron  that  boiled  beneath. 

Then,  behind,  another  and  smaller  callipers  of  grey  and 
silver  where  the  harbour  with  its  circle  of  quarried  limestone 
connected  with  the  great  bay  by  a  narrow  neck  of  water, 
over  which  hung  the  shadow  of  a  ruined  castle,  through  which 
the  tide  ran  like  polished  jade,  strong  and  smooth;  and  then 
behind  again  where  another  and  still  smaller  circle  of  water, 
fed  from  the  harbour  through  the  gullet  of  the  red  sandstone 
bridge  where  the  waters  choked  and  gurgled,  brimmed  to  the 
distant  foothills  at  the  foot  of  Croagh  Cromlech. 

Somewhere,  sometime,  he  had  known  the  old  bridge,  the 
green  tides,  the  purple  mountains.  It  was  all  as  dear  and  as 
familiar  as  a  place  seen  in  a  dream. 

Above  his  head,  a  flight  of  starling  travelled  like  winged 
quarrels  over  towards  Croagh  Cromlech  on  their  long  migra- 
tion. Somehow,  from  then,  Dunhallow  was  always  with  him 
as  a  flight  of  starling,  flying  to  some  unknown  country,  over 
the  hills  and  far  away. 

He  had  come  home. 

The  ash-coloured  books  seemed  very  far  away. 

He  stood  there  on  the  little  gravelled  station  and  he  seemed 
to  know  every  stone  of  it.  His  eye  ran  along  the  thick  lime- 
stone wall  that  fringed  into  infinity  the  bay  lying  under  the 
foothills,  and  he  knew  every  break  of  it — he  could  almost 
see  the  velvety  brown  moss,  the  whitey-grey  lichens  that  par- 
terred  the  stones.  The  scent  of  September  was  in  the  airs, 
with  the  tang  of  peat,  that  warm  intimate  scent  which 
for  some  reason  made  him  think  of  cabins  resting  perilous 
on  the  edges  of  mountain  bogs — and  there,  coming  up  to  greet 


104  GODS 

him  from  the  railway  track  itself,  stood  a  foxglove,  speckled 
and  friendly,  bending  towards  him  in  welcome.  And  then, 
feeling  for  some  association,  it  came  ....  fairies. 

Yet  Finn  had  never  seen  a  fairy,  unless  it  had  been  within 
the  covers  of  some  book,  nor  had  the  tang  of  peat  ever  be- 
fore crossed  his  mortal  nostrils.  Yet  all  these  things  were 
his  own — they  were  the  dear  familiar  things  of  a  shadow- 
country  where  he  had  wandered  and  lived. 

A  curlew  called  somewhere  over  the  flats. 

Something  was  quartering  the  gravel  as  it  scuffled  towards 
him  on  a  pair  of  heelless  carpet  slippers.  Around  its  shame- 
less trousers  a  frock-coat  fluttered  its  signals  of  distress.  Its 
waistcoat,  a  double-breasted  woolly  contraption,  was  held  to- 
gether by  one  button,  half  a  dozen  pins,  and  the  love  of  God. 
It  had  a  stiff  dickey,  fringed  by  something  that  had  once 
been  a  collar — a  one-piece  arrangement  which  was  both  stud- 
less  and  collarless.  That  it  was  also  tieless  did  not  matter, 
as  the  owner  had  a  beautiful  nut-brown  curling  beard  of 
his  own  growing  up  to  a  pair  of  bewilderingly  blue  eyes. 

"Johnny  the  Saint,  sor,"  was  his  greeting,  as  he  took  Finn's 
pride,  a  Gladstone  bag  of  brown  paper  leather  which  he  had 
bought  from  a  gentleman  in  Southhampton  Row  who  had  had 
some  difficulty  with  is  "w's"  and  "th's." 

London  was  very  far  away.  It  was  more  distant  than  any 
city  of  a  dream,  and  it  came  to  Finn  that  perhaps  this  life 
of  ours,  sleeping  and  waking,  was  but  a  dream — or  was  il« 
that  the  dreaming  life  was  the  real,  and  the  waking,  illusion? 
All  things  were  possible  in  Ireland,  where  dream  and  reality 
merged. 

The  white  limestone  road  that  travelled  so  fast  between 
the  wheels  of  the  side-car  was  friendly.  Johnny,  sitting  on 
the  other  side  of  the  jarvey,  the  tail  of  his  coat  hanging  un- 
concernedly over  the  wheel,  was  friendly — friendly  to  Finn's 
bag  around  which  he  had  placed  one  long  shirtless  arm,  and 
friendly  to  Finn  to  whom  he  gave  warnings  as  needed:  "Hould 
on  tight  here,  sor,  or  'tis  your  honour  that  might  be  jolted 
into  the  bosom  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  ....  there's  a  hole 
in  the  road  over  there,  but  trust  to  Johnny  the  Saint  .  .  . 
the  mare'll  be  takin'  this  corner  on  one  wheel,  'tis  the  crathure's 
way.  .  .  ." 

As  they  rattled  over  the  grey  patchings  of  limestone  from  the 


IRELAND  105 

station,  which  lay  some  little  distance  outside  the  town,  he 
saw  across  the  empty  circle  of  the  stone  quay,  empty  save 
for  an  ancient  brigantine  with  a  weather-worn  figure-head  of 
Our  Lady  of  the  Seas  stretching  in  disconsolate  gilded  bounty 
over  the  green  waters,  a  solitary  wall,  standing  up  out  of  the 
centuries  like  a  broken  tooth,  and,  crouching  under  its  foot, 
a  square-towered  abbey,  looking  blindly  over  the  waste  of  the 
bay  towards  Carrickmore.  For  the  first  time  he  noticed,  jut- 
ting out  into  the  great  bay,  a  spit  of  sandy  peninsula,  across 
the  end  of  which  the  green  tide  frothed  its  fury  as  it  raced 
towards  the  little  grey  town,  leaving  behind,  under  the  lee  of 
the  spit,  a  miniature  bay,  its  waters  silted  with  the  sands 
of  the  ages  dyed  black  and  gold  under  the  setting  sun. 

As  he  was  thrown  out  upon  the  stone  pavement  and  almost 
into  a  door  which  stood  hospitably  open  and  leaning  on  one 
hinge  in  the  middle  of  a  high  stone  wall,  the  sound  of  a  bell 
came  stealing  over  the  tides.  Johnny,  who  was  about  to  take 
his  bag  through  the  door,  dropped  it,  took  from  his  head  with 
a  sideways  hooking  gesture  the  old  cap  that  covered  the 
straggling  brown  curls  that  dropped  around  his  head,  and 
crossed  himself.  It  was  the  Angelus. 

To  Finn  himself  had  come  an  insane  desire  to  remove  his 
own  hard  hat  and  cross  himself.  A  prayer  almost  crept  from 
his  lips  as  he  looked  at  the  blue  eyes  of  Johnny  the  Saint 
staring  straight  before  him,  now  filled  with  a  moony  iridescence 
of  the  spirit  in  which  the  eyes  seemed  to  swim,  detached. 
He  looked  like  a  Christ  down  at  heels.  Finn  thought  of  his 
father. 

The  Reverend  Cornelius  O'Dempsey,  P.P.,  with  whom 
Father  Lestrange  had  arranged  that  he  should  stay,  and  who 
was  filling  up  the  door  in  the  stone  wall,  was  a  giant  of  a 
man  with  a  long  barrel-like  body  set  on  legs  of  a  mould  that 
almost  transcended  the  limits  of  humanity.  The  eyes  en- 
folding Finn  seemed  to  be  part  with  the  grey  walls  out  of 
which  they  looked — the  eyes  of  his  father  and  Lanthorn  and 
Mary  Titterling.  The  nose  was  straight  and  strong  as  a 
Greek's.  One  long  arm  stretched  out  with  a  "That's  all  right, 
Johnny  boy!"  relieved  Johnny  of  the  bag.  The  hand  of  the 
other  took  that  of  Finn  in  its  warm  muscular  clasp.  Finn 
Fontaine  had  had  heart-searchings  about  travelling  in  his 
former  best  suit  and  had  been  regretting  the  new  clothes  which 


io6  GODS 

a  family  subscription  had  provided  and  which  were  packed 
away  in  the  Gladstone.  These  heart-searchings  left  him  as  his 
eyes  looked  into  those  of  the  priest  and  fell  upon  the  gold  cross 
which  hung  from  his  black  mohair  watch-chain. 

They  were  eyes  with  infallibility  and  humour  and  under- 
standing in  them,  set  in  a  face  like  a  sound  red  apple  that 
creased  itself  easily.  It  was  at  that  precise  moment  he  be- 
came conscious  of  a  little  face  looking  out  at  him  from  under 
the  priest's  arm.  For  a  moment  he  thought  it  was  his  imagina- 
tion, for  all  the  walls  seemed  to  be  full  of  faces — then  he 
saw  it  was  a  little  woman  with  two  burning  shrunken  eyes 
fastened  on  him,  her  hair,  almost  non-existent,  yet  parted  nat- 
tily low  down  on  the  narrow  forehead. 

A  little  critical  hand  came  out  with  a  weazened,  doubtful 
"well,  we'll  do  our  best  for  you  with  the  help  of  God,"  and 
the  two  little  eyes  bored  into  him. 

"Ah,  go  along  wid  ye,  with  your  cavortings  and  blandish- 
ments!" 

Finn  was  startled,  but  the  last  words  were  not  for  him. 
For  all  this  time,  Johnny  the  Saint  had  been  executing  the 
involved  set  of  curtsys,  quartering  the  flagstones,  lifting  the 
cap  with  the  broken  brim  repeatedly,  bowing  his  head,  and 
expressing,  especially  by  his  feet,  the  hopeless  passion  which 
had  illumined  and  saddened  his  life  for  the  previous  quarter 
of  a  century,  from  the  time  when  Kitty  O'Halloran,  now  the 
priest's  housekeeper,  but  then  known  as  "Kitty  the  Divil," 
had  set  the  town  aflame  with  her  enchantments.  For  this 
little  woman,  crabbed  virgin  that  she  was  and  tightly  cor- 
setted  to  her  throat,  the  once  delicate  curves  of  chin,  nose, 
and  mouth  sculptured  by  time  into  a  nutcracker,  had  once 
been  the  beauty  of  Dunhallow,  inflaming  even  mere  boys,  as 
Johnny  then  was,  to  violent  emotion.  Those  angry  shrunken 
eyes  of  nondescript  colouring  had  once  made  young  men,  and 
beautiful  young  men  at  that,  queer  about  the  knees.  Those 
feet,  now  encased  in  shapeless  corny  boots  with  the  cross- 
slashes  that  brought  back  his  father  to  Finn,  had  once  been 
crammed  into  No.  3's  and  had  had  poetry  written  about  them. 
Those  spindle  limbs,  which,  as  Finn  discovered  to  his  shame- 
ful confusion  a  minute  afterwards,  as  white-stockinged  they 
preceded  him  up  the  stairs,  were  clothed  in  natural  wool 
trouserings  with  a  tendency  to  slipping,  had  sent  Jim  O'Grady, 


IRELAND  107 

one  of  the  catches  of  the  county,  to  seek  four  bullets  from  a 
firing  squad  in  the  revolution  of  a  South  American  republic, 
directed,  more's  the  pity,  by  a  South  American  Irishman 
of  the  name  of  O'Higgins,  and  had  troubled  the  confessionals 
with  the  admissions  of  callow  youth. 

Whether  in  the  admireful  or  critical  moments  of  her  con- 
temporaries, Miss  O'Halloran  usually  hated  to  be  called  "Kitty 
the  Divil,"  but  there  were  weak  moments  when  she  would 
take  a  sort  of  contrary  pride  in  it,  the  gleam  would  come  back 
to  the  shrunken  eye,  little  will  o'  the  wisp  lights  would  show 
themselves  in  the  embittered  features,  and  so  Kitty  the  Divil 
would  boast  ruefully  of  her  past  misdoings — but  never  before 
Father  Con,  whom,  in  all  other  things,  she  treated  as  a  sort 
of  holy  baby. 

But  she  was  still  unmated.  Kitty  could  never  make  up 
her  mind  in  those  days  of  long  ago.  What  she  had  wanted, 
she  hardly  knew  herself.  But  it  was  to  be  something  in  uni- 
form— Kitty  had  always  had  an  official  weakness  for  uniforms 
and  had  once  lost  her  heart  to  a  member  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Constabulary,  one  of  those  fifty-inch  chesters  with  a  wife 
the  other  side  of  Belfast — but,  as  she  said,  when  she  found 
him  out:  "What  could  you  expect  out  of  the  Black  North?" 
Finally  she  had  withered  into  the  consolations  of  religion  and 
of  Father  Con  O'Dempsey,  who  informed  Finn  confidentially 
that  evening,  after  the  supper  had  been  cleared  away:  "She 
is  the  only  thing  of  which  I  am  afraid,  Mr.  Fontaine — except 
God  and  the  Devil — and  faith! — God  forgive  me  for  saying  so 
— I  think  I  fear  her  the  most,  for  she  is  the  most  real  .  .  . 
and  there's  no  getting  round  her." 

From  his  bedroom  on  the  upper  storey  of  the  two-floored 
stone  house  with  its  roofs  of  purple  slate,  Finn  could  just 
see  over  the  high  wall  upon  which,  in  summer,  grew  the 
friendly  wallflowers,  great  velvety  fellows  who  breathed  their 
heavy  scents  across  to  the  window,  mingled  with  those  other 
scents  of  tarry  ropes  and  salt  tides  from  the  harbour  below, 
or  over  which,  in  May,  peered  the  lilac  clusters,  when  Johnny 
the  Saint  would  come  round  for  a  few  to  decorate  the  altar 
of  our  Blessed  Lady.  It  was  the  only  time  in  the  year  that 
Miss  Kitty  O'Halloran  had  a  trifle  of  unbending  for  Johnny, 
with  something  of  a  wintry  smile  lighting  up  the  dimples  of 
her  crab-apple  face. 


io8  GODS 

It  was  this  which  made  the  month  of  May  something  to  be 
looked  forward  to  for  a  whole  twelve  months  by  Johnny,  who 
put  it  down  to  religion,  although  it  was  really  the  spring. 
But  even  in  her  most  snaky  moments,  she  always  had  a  cup 
of  tea  for  Johnny,  for  she  herself,  in  her  own  words,  "drenched 
her  insides  with  tay"  throughout  the  day  and  always  had  the 
little  black  pot  on  the  hob:  "for  isn't  tea  a  spiritual  drink?" 
she  would  say. 

In  the  shadows  of  evening,  with  Croagh  Cromlech  now  but 
a  blur  in  the  heavens  and  the  seep-seep  of  the  waters  under 
the  old  bridge  the  only  sound,  Finn  looked  out  whilst  he 
washed  his  hands  and  face  in  the  strong  yellow  soap  in  the 
minute  chiney-ware  jug  and  basin,  waiting  for  Father  Con. 

Father  Lestrange,  who  seemed  to  know  everybody  and  to 
whom  even  Thrum  himself  seemed  to  be  known  in  an  intimate 
way,  had  given  him  a  letter  to  Father  Con,  who  had  looked 
at  him  curiously  for  a  moment  after  he  had  read  it.  "It  seems 
that  we  still  entertain  angels  unawares,"  he  had  said  half  to 
himself. 

"You've  come  to  solve  the  Irish  Question,"  the  big  man  had 
gone  on.  "Some  think  it  a  century  old,  some,  seven  centuries 
—but  it  is  as  old  as  time  itself. 

"You  shall  have  the  solution  in  the  chapel  of  the  Abbey  to- 
night, or,  rather,  the  explanation.  In  Ireland  there  is  no  flux 
in  religion  or  politic"  ....  and  then  he  had  stopped  .  . 
.  .  "the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever,  and  the  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it."  In  it  was  something  tre- 
mendous, ex  cathedra.  He  had  paused  again  and  then  went 
on: 

"There's  a  gentleman  named  Pickles  breaking  chairs  in 
London  to  the  glory  of  God:  let  him  come  here  and  break  as 
many  chairs  as  he  likes,  he  will  not  break  the  Catholic  Faith 
— here  where  politics  and  faith  are  one.  And  yet,"  he  added, 
with  that  queer  little  smile  dragging  at  his  lips,  "Ireland  in 
a  sense  has  no  faith — hers  is  a  faith  so  great  that  it  embraces 
all  faiths — nor  am  I  speaking  of  Catholicism  or  of  Catholic 
dogma.  She  has  drawn  some  of  her  greatest  sons  from  your 
own  church,  Mr.  Fontaine — Robert  Emmet  and  Wolfe  Tone 
and  Parnell — and  he  was  an  Englishman.  The  best  Irishmen 
are  Englishmen,"  he  had  added  whimsically  as  the  rosy  face 


IRELAND  109 

creased  itself  again.  "Ireland  is  the  house  of  spiritual  alchemy 
to  which  all  things  yield  and  in  which  even  the  base  becomes 
precious,  just  as  it  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  in  which 
the  people  simply  don't  understand  non-belief. 

"Nobody  knows  anything  about  us,  but  we  have  left  our 
marks  on  the  world — the  marks  of  faith,  impalpable  but  in- 
effaceable." 

As  they  walked  together  over  the  bridge  and  along  the  old 
raised  causeway  that,  under  the  rising  September  moon,  swung 
its  white  length  between  the  lines  of  black  chains,  inside  which 
men  moved  as  shadows,  the  priest  was  silent.  The  cottages 
ghosted  themselves  out  of  the  massy  shadows  away  at  the 
other  end,  in  a  light  that  seemed  to  come  from  the  earth  itself. 
As  they  walked  through  the  night,  there  came  to  them  the  creak 
of  a  pulley,  the  distant  cry  of  a  sailor,  the  "peep"  of  a  sea 
bird,  the  laugh  of  a  girl — a  full  throated  chuckle  like  the 
chuckle  of  a  blackbird  that  sent  Finn's  pulses  a-beating.  For 
one  single  moment,  the  inconsequent  memory  of  that  girl  with 
the  hair  of  bushy  tawn  flamed  across  his  consciousness — it 
was  just  that — a  flame  that  rushed  across  him  and  was  gone. 

They  passed  along  the  low  stone  wall  skirting  the  harbour 
and  the  narrow  channel  leading  to  the  expanse  of  waters  out- 
side, now  black  and  sullen  under  the  great  orange  moon, 
across  which,  as  they  looked,  a  gigantic  sea  fowl  slowly  flapped 
its  way  into  the  heart  of  the  blackness.  And  as  Finn  looked, 
there  came  to  him  the  pulsing  of  a  bell,  as  bells  must  sound 
on  Sabbath  evenings  in  heaven — not  full  toned,  not  even 
sweet,  with  something  of  the  harshness  of  dogma  in  it — 
but  part  of  the  night  and  of  Ireland. 

Then  looming  before  them  the  jagged  fang  of  wall,  beneath 
it  the  peep  of  lights,  oranges  and  blues  and  crimsons  where 
the  coloured  panes  jewelled  the  night,  and  then  the  square 
tower.  The  bell  had  hushed.  They  had  passed  inside  for  the 
incense  to  steal  to  them,  and  the  Father  had  dipped  his  fingers 
in  the  font  of  holy  water  at  the  side  wall  and  blessed  him- 
self. Some  of  the  drops  sprinkled  on  Finn.  His  hand  in- 
stinctively stole  up  to  his  forehead  ....  and  then  he  re- 
membered. He  was  not  a  Catholic.  Protestants  did  not  bless 
themselves. 

Out  of  the  twilight,  with  the  solitary  starlight  burning  up 
there  before  the  Lord  made  flesh,  came  the  murmur  of  voices. 


no  GODS 

It  rose  and  fell,  swelled  and  died  away  in  a  sort  of  aspiring 
chaunt.  On  the  altar,  lights  were  moving. 

Finn  found  himself  in  the  melting  pot  of  Ireland — in  that 
"house  of  spiritual  alchemy."  On  his  knees  beside  the  priest 
he  let  his  soul  wander  out  through  the  shadowy  roof  up  to 
the  firmament  of  star  and  velvet  above — out  through  the 
darkness  with  the  seabird — out  over  the  face  of  the  waters 
into  the  heart  of  infinity. 

As  they  walked  back,  the  words  of  Father  Con  came 
again,  and  yet  again,  to  his  memory:  "The  same,  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever  ....  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it."  .  .  .  and  the  gates  of  hell.  .  .  . 

As  he  climbed  into  his  feather  bed  that  night,  with  the 
words  of  Johnny  the  Saint  still  in  his  ears:  "And  may  the 
heavens  be  your  bed  this  night!"  it  was  to  find  himself  in  a 
new  but  a  very  old  world.  He  could  hear  the  tide  rushing 
under  the  bridge  ....  swoosh  ....  swoosh  .... 
the  place  where  dreams  come  true. 

Ireland. 


XI 

THE  LAND  OF   SHADOWS 

When  Finn  had  been  a  month  in  Ireland,  he  received  two 
letters — one,  in  the  stilted  handwriting  of  his  mother  with  a 
certain  unsuspected  insubordination  in  the  capitals,  the  other, 
in  the  upright  painted  characters  of  his  Aunt  Bella  with  some- 
thing uncompromising  about  them  in  a  Chinese  way. 

The  former  was  interesting  in  the  way  that  a  patchwork 
quilt  is  interesting  and  was  not  without  that  literary  touch 
which  had  made  Mrs.  Fontaine  the  shining  light  of  the  Forest- 
ford  Church  Mutual  Improvement  Society,  at  the  discussions 
of  which  she  read  short  introductory  papers  upon  such  wildly 
interesting  subjects  as  "Why  I  am  Church";  "Is  Cleanliness 
next  to  Godliness?"  and  so  on. 

From  it  he  learned  that  his  father,  faced  by  a  combination 
of  MacGlusky,  short  weight,  slack  and  religion,  had  been 
driven  more  deeply  into  the  soap  trade.  He  had  managed  to 
sell  half  a  ton  of  "Beauty"  to  an  eccentric  spinster,  a  tall 
rank  creature  who  with  her  smirk  and  iron-grey  curls  inhabited 
a  lonely  house  on  the  borders  of  Epping  Forest,  overlooking 
the  vast  dormitory  of  Walthamstow,  who  had  asked  him  for 
one  hundred  enlargements  of  her  photograph. 

It  seemed  that  Jemmy  had  booked  the  order,  in  his  ex- 
citement falling  over  the  glazed  bag  into  the  hall,  and  had 
had  the  photo  enlargements  delivered  by  a  special  van,  accom- 
panied by  himself,  and  on  the  road,  the  road  to  fortune,  al- 
lowed his  mind  to  play  lightly  around  the  airy  castles  which, 
by  the  time  he  had  reached  the  house,  had  assumed  precipi- 
tous dimensions.  Upon,  however,  trying  to  deliver  the  soap 
and  collect  the  money,  the  eccentric  spinster  had  professed 
complete  ignorance  of  him  and  his  soap,  there  had  been  a 
lamentable  scene,  and  finally  she  had  set  the  dog  on  him  with 
unfortunate  results  to  Jemmy's  trousers  and  nerves. 

Then  he  discovered  that  what  he  had  taken  to  be  eccen- 

iii 


ii2  GODS 

tricity  was  just  lunacy,  although  the  lady  had  not  been  so 
mad  that  she  had  not  held  on  to  a  dozen  of  the  enlargements, 
for  which  he  himself  had  been  forced  to  pay. 

All  this  had  had  a  very  depressing  effect  on  him,  and  they 
would  have  been  in  a  bad  way  at  Ash  Villa  had  it  not  been 
for  Mr.  Buldger  Spellbind  and  the  Happy  Homes  of  England, 
Limited.  From  what  his  mother  wrote,  it  appeared  that  his 
father  had  "done  a  deal"  in  some  of  the  shares,  which  he 
had  bought.  She  called  it  "investment"  two  lines  further 
down,  regretting  her  plunge  into  technicalities.  He  had  "come 
in  low  and  cleared  out  high,"  which,  from  what  Mrs.  Fon- 
taine said,  was  the  whole  art  of  investment. 

It  seemed  that  the  Happy  Homes  was  a  golden  adventure 
in  bricks  and  mortar,  of  which  that  little  man  Spellbind,  whose 
photograph  was  constantly  appearing  in  the  papers,  was  the 
pillar,  as  well  as  a  pillar  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  church  in 
the  suburb  where  he  liveJ.  Finn  remembered  him  from  the 
illustrateds.  A  bulging  foreheaded  little  frockcoated  man  with 
an  enormous  top  hat  that  endeavoured  vainly  to  get  on  terms 
with  the  coping  of  his  forehead,  who  was  always  referred  to 
as  "a  pillar"  of  this  or  that  and  who  was  always  springing 
new  schemes,  involving  millions.  As  he  said  himself:  "I  can't 
think  in  thousands.  Don't  know  how."  He  was  the  pet  of 
tens  of  thousands  of  little  investors,  many  of  them  drawn  from 
the  nonconformist  chapels,  who  followed  him  blindly  in  all 
his  schemes  and  who,  to  give  them  their  due,  had  in  the  mass 
no  more  idea  that  the  Happy  Homes  were  really  the  ugliest 
slum  wilderness  in  London,  inhabited  partly  by  women  of 
the  streets  and  partly  by  the  criminal  classes,  from  much  of 
which  the  landlord  could  only  collect  his  rents  through  the 
medium  of  "key-men,"  themselves  denizens  and  usually  crim- 
inals, than  they  had  of  the  prize-ring  and  the  theatre  against 
which  they  fulminated. 

Strom,  the  lodger,  had  been  giving  more  trouble  at  Ash 
Villa  with  "his  foreign  fads  and  notions."  His  particular 
God  needed  a  vegetarian  diet  for  his,  understanding  and 
digestion,  and  it  seemed  that  Mrs.  Fontaine  had  been  having 
what  she  called  "a  tiff"  with  him  upon  the  subject  of  suet 
in  pie-crusts.  He  had  also  begun  to  display  an  inconvenient 
habit  of  lying  about  clothed  in  nothing  but  his  rectitude.  He 
called  it  "taking  a  sun-bath"  ....  and  then  Mrs.  Fon- 


THE  LAND  OF  SHADOWS  113 

taine  had  been  silent  with  a  discretion  horribly  suggestive. 
His  Aunt  Bella  had  however  supplemented  with  one  of  her 
bitter-sweet  explanations  from  which  it  appeared  that  it  would 
not  really  have  mattered  had  it,  not  been  that  "one  of  the 
friends  opposite,"  a  maiden  lady  of  no  uncertain  years,  had 
discovered  that  by  standing  tiptoe  on  two  books  laid  upon 
her  table,  she  was  enabled  to  glimpse  the  holy  man  literally 
in  puris  naturalibus,  and  had  complained  strongly  to  the 
neighbourhood. 

The  Latin  and  the  malignant  black  characters  brought  back 
to  Finn  that  erratic  but  unsubduable  Cuthey  tendency  to 
writing  and  the  still-born  MS.  commenced  by  his  Aunt  Bella 
in  youth  and  never  finished.  It  was  to  have  been  called  "Our 
Village"  and  was  a  caustic  analysis,  freely  barbed  by  Latin 
quotations,  of  the  little  Nottinghamshire  village  where  she 
had  lived  the  first  twenty-four  years  of  her  life.  But  it 
had  never  reached  fruition  and  had  been  abandoned  with  some 
lavender  scented  letters  in  a  drawer  where  Finn's  enquiring 
nose,  poking  where  it  had  no  business  to  poke,  had  found  it. 
This  had  happened  when  Bella  Cuthey,  after  the  accident  to 
her  face  which  had  spoiled  her  beauty,  had  "got  religion"  and 
renounced  the  devil  and  all  his  works,  amongst  which  were 
presumably  the  manuscript  and  the  .letters. 

The  only  gleam  in  his  mother's  letter  was  the  story  that  Mr. 
Paris  Asthar  had  been  flaunting  it  in  Regent  Street  in  a  pleated 
frock-coat  that  had  caused  a  sensation  and  a  bitter  schism 
in  the  young  men  about  town.  This,  Mrs.  Fontaine  told  with 
a  certain  satisfaction,  referring  to  Asthar  as  "your  friend." 
It  was  the  Cuthey  weakness  for  the  aristocracy.  In  a  weak 
moment,  Finn  had  mentioned  the  Thrum  interview  and  Mr. 
Asthar's  invitation. 

The  letter  finished  upon  a  note  of  condolence  at  his  situa- 
tion "amongst  those  Irish  heathen  in  that  place  with  the  out- 
landish name,"  much  as  though  Dunhallow  or  Black  Rock 
were  Crusoe's  Island,  which  brought  Finn  back  to  reality.  For 
all  those  things  of  London  seemed  remote  here  in  Ireland. 
They  had  nothing  to  do  either  with  him  or  with  living. 

He  was  still  gathering  facts  for  his  Irish  articles  and  already 
there  had  commenced  in  him  the  first  outpost  affair  of  a  battle 
between  ethic  and  ambition.  For  he  had  received  a  letter 
from  "The  Earth,"  saying  they  wished  him  to  give  special 


ii4  GODS 

attention  to  the  irreconcilable  differences  between  Catholic  and 
Protestant  in  Ireland.  However  hazily,  he  felt  in  it  an  indi- 
cation as  to  how  he  was  to  write.  But  Finn  Fontaine  was  of 
the  sort  that  hates  "indication."  He  wanted  to  be  free. 

Ever  since  he  had  landed  in  Dunhallow,  he  had  been  trying 
to  divide  Ireland  into  Catholics  and  Protestants,  Home  Rulers 
and  Unionists.  He  found  Ireland  incapable  of  division.  He 
had  tried  to  make  that  hitherto  infallible  division  of  people 
into  "propagandists"  and  "indifferents,"  the  division  he  had 
made  at  the  Tabernacle  meeting  and  had  been  making  ever 
since  he  could  think.  But  here,  in  the  land  where  belief  was 
always  at  white  heat  and  where  matter  was  dominated  by 
spirit,  there  was  no  propaganda.  In  all  his  month  he  had  not 
been  able  to  find  any  attempt  by  Catholic  to  convert  Protes- 
tant, or  by  Protestant  to  convert  Catholic,  and  so  far  as 
politics  were  concerned,  here  in  the  South  at  any  rate  there 
was  no  attempt  at  prosyletisation.  In  Ireland  one  instinctively 
thought  of  politic  and  religion,  that  is  the  religion  which 
lies  behind  dogma,  as  one  and  the  same.  As  for  the  people  of 
the  ash-covered  books,  it  never  occurred  to  either  Protestant 
or  Catholic  that  they  existed.  The  nearest  he  ever  got  to 
an  Irishman's  consciousness  of  the  existence  of  such  people 
was  one  day  when  Father  Con,  who  had  been  reading  an  ar- 
ticle in  "The  Tablet"  upon  the  decay  of  faith  and  morals 
throughout  Europe,  said:  "Some  day  the  Almighty  God  will 
get  mad  and  there  will  be  a  great  war  ....  or  something." 

It  seemed  to  him  that  every  Irishman  he  had  met,  irre- 
spective of  his  particular  dogma,  was  so  entirely  assured  of  the 
efficacy  and  assuredness,  not  of  his  religion,  but  of  religion, 
as  the  only  thing  in  the  world  that  mattered,  that  it  never 
entered  into  his  mind  "to  take  it  out  of  the  hands  of  God," 
as  they  phrased  it.  Ireland  was  the  end  of  faith,  not  of  faiths. 
Ireland  was  one  whole. 

In  his  attempts  to  find  out  what  was  this  faith  that  was 
of  Ireland,  he  had  discovered  that  not  only  was  there  no 
propaganda,  but  no  jealousy.  Father  Con,  a  fervent  Catholic, 
himself  spoke  well  of  the  little  body  of  local  Methodists  who 
met  in  a  bandbox  over  a  stable.  "A  stable  is  a  good  place," 
he  said,  "sure  wasn't  our  Blessed  Lord  born  in  one?"  They 
were  shepherded  by  Sam  Sligo,  a  tub-bodied  man  with  puny 
arms  and  a  voice  like  a  rasp,  whose  nose  snubbed  itself  out 


THE  LAND  OF  SHADOWS  115 

of  an  undergrowth  of  whisker.  In  some  unexplained  way  he 
reminded  Finn  of  a  picture  he  had  once  seen  of  Karl  Marx, 
the  founder  of  economic  Socialism.  He  found  in  him,  in  the 
moments  of  his  more  fervent  bellowings,  which  he  made  in 
good  dissenting  fashion  with  one  knee  on  a  chair,  as  a  protest 
against  two-kneed  Papistry,  an  entire  belief  that  the  Lord  pros- 
pers the  godly  man,  a  belief  which  he  shared  both  with  John  L. 
Crux  and  with  Finn's  father,  although,  like  them  also,  the 
next  moment  he  would  commit  himself  devoutly  to  the  state- 
ment that  "him  that  the  Lord  loveth,  he  chasteneth."  He 
found  here,  as  so  often  before,  a  sort  of  unity  of  faith;  a 
philosophy;  a  synthesis;  which  seemed  to  unite  the  most 
differentiate.  It  was  a  unity  of  human  beings  that  was  always 
discovering  itself,  and  against  all  reason  and  even  conviction. 

He  also  was  a  hell-fire  man,  but  of  another  type  to  the  Gen- 
eral and  Billy  Pickles,  for  he  took  the  damned,  that  is  to 
say,  the  Catholics,  pretty  easy,  all  things  considering  .... 
perhaps  because  anyhow  they  were  sure  to  go  to  hell  in  the 
fullness  of  time.  In  this  world  at  any  rate  they  were  his  best 
customers  and  very  good  friends. 

He  was  a  draper  in  the  main  street  and  prospered  before 
the  Lord,  wherefore  he  rejoiced  exceedingly  on  Sundays,  and 
always  through  his  little  snub  nose.  Like  his  congregation 
and  his  friends  the  Catholics  in  the  chapel  across  the  road, 
one  of  the  three  Catholic  chapels  of  the  town,  he  was  en- 
tirely assured  of  his  own  immortality  and  was  of  a  conscious- 
ness exceedingly  defined. 

But  though  there  was  peace  between  Protestant  and  Cath- 
olic, there  was  no  peace  between  Protestant  and  Protestant. 
There  was  the  ^Reverend  Dick  Despard,  "Don't-care-a-damn- 
Dick,"  as  he  was  affectionately  known  by  the  Catholics. 
This  easy-going  lovable  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  Ireland, 
with  his  ragged  beard  and  moustache,  rolling  eye  and  rakish 
billycock  hat  set  at  a  most  unclerical  angle  on  the  side  of  his 
reverend  pate,  had,  Finn  discovered  by  accident  more  than 
anything  else,  for  no  one  thought  anything  about  it,  been 
caught  apportioning  the  church  funds  to  his  own  very  real 
necessities,  which  included  a  small  wife  and  thirteen  large 
children.  (There  had  been  an  item  of  paint  for  some  gates 
that  had  never  been  painted  and  there  were  other  things — 
collection  shortages,  etc.)  But  he  was  beloved  of  the 


n6  GODS 

"Papists."  He  was  shamefully  underpaid  "and  who  would 
be  afther  blaming  the  honest  man?"  said  the  Catholics  who 
had  a  lenient  eye  for  this  sort  of  thing  when  it  concerned 
the  rival  church. 

The  children  of  Dunhallow  loved  him  and  his  bulls-eyes — a 
powerful  peppermint  concoction  and  unfailing  preventive  of 
"wind,"  and  his  pennies  (possibly  purloined  from  sacramental 
sources),  and  his  popularity  often  caused  theological  pertur- 
bations in  the  mind  of  Catholic  youth  which  had  been  taught 
to  uncover  to  the  priests  of  God  and  to  none  other.  Despite 
his  tendency  to  "appropriation"  and  "a  dhrop  of  the  crathure" 
in  canonical  moments  (he  had  a  habit  of  retiring  during  the 
singing  of  the  first  hymn),  which,  unlike  his  enemy,  the 
Reverend  MacDougal,  unfortunately  went  to  his  head  and 
not  to  his  stomach,  there  was  hardly  a  woman  in  the  place 
that  did  not  give  him  the  ecclesiastical  "bob"  nor  a  child 
that  didn't  take  off  its  hat — when  it  had  one. 

But  he  was  faced  by  a  splitting  half  of  a  congregation, 
shocked  at  his  shortcomings  and  the  leniency  of  a  good-natured 
Bishop,  who  were  ministered  to  by  the  above-mentioned  Rev- 
erend Jock  MacDougal,  known  locally  as  "the  Reverend 
Mac,"  a  raw-boned  broad-shouldered  Antrim  Scotsman  with  a 
raw-boned  voice,  in  a  little  upper  chamber  hung  in  red  like 
a  sacrificial  altar  that  matched  the  red  whiskers  and  face 
of  this  Presbyterian  priest,  who  when  he  preached  seemed  to 
carry  a  claymore  in  his  hand.  He  was  the  only  Protestant 
there  that  Finn  had  met  who  seemed  to  feel  that  the  Catho- 
lics were  other  than  one  flesh  with  their  heretic  brethren. 
But,  as  the  Reverend  Dick  himself  had  said  to  Finn  in  easy, 
sleepy  good-nature,  his  hands  deep  in  his  cross-pockets,  his 
billycock  over  one  eye:  "What  can  you  expect,  Mr.  Fon- 
taine, out  of  the  Black  North?"  But  that  was  an  expression 
he  often  heard  from  other  lips  and  especially  from  Miss  Kitty 
O'Halloran,  with  whom  he  was  now  on  terms  of  crabbed 
friendship. 

Not  that  this  by  any  means  exhausted  the  sects.  There 
was  a  rumour  that  the  local  Inspector  of  the  Royal  Irish  Con- 
stabulary, a  perfect  giant  of  a  man  with  a  back  like  a  tomb- 
stone, had  some  wonderful  back-parlour  faith  of  his  own  which 
he  kept  entirely  to  himself,  to  his  tiny  nonentity  of  a  wife, 
who  spent  her  time  in  producing  children,  mostly  in  bunches, 


THE  LAND  OF  SHADOWS  117 

for  she  had  a  tendency  to  twins,  and  to  the  children  themselves. 
Nobody  knew  what  that  faith  was,  but  no  one  had  ever  seen 
them  inside  any  of  the  orthodox  places  of  worship. 

And  finally,  there  was  old  Groyle,  the  black-faced  atheist, 
locally  known  in  derisive  friendliness  as  the  begaun  man,  be- 
cause of  his  dealing  in  eggs,  to  which  he  added  blackberries 
and  mushrooms,  in  the  season.  However,  when  Finn  went  to 
him  to  absorb  local  information  for  Crux  upon  the  blackberry 
and  mushroom  possibilities  of  Dunhallow,  and,  knowing  his 
local  reputation,  began  to  sound  him  upon  the  ash-covered 
books,  he  found  out  that  his  antipathy  to  religion  was  not  to 
religion  in  the  abstract  but  in  the  concrete.  It  seemed  it  was  he 
who  had  led  the  secession  from  the  Reverend  Dick,  but  had 
afterwards  quarrelled  with  the  Reverend  Mac  upon  certain 
knotty  questions  of  dogma.  He  had  tried  to  lead  a  second 
secession,  but,  having  failed,  had  gone  into  the  outer  agnostic 
darkness.  It  was  anyhow  obvious  that  he  called  himself  an 
atheist  more  from  deviltry  than  conviction. 

One  by  one  Finn's  ideas  and  his  prejudices,  political,  re- 
ligious, social,  had  been  going  in  "the  house  of  spiritual  al- 
chemy." 

It  was  after  this  last  interview  that  he  had  gone  out  to  Black 
Rock  on  a  jaunting  car  with  Johnny  the  Saint  as  Jehu,  to 
inspect  the  fishing  possibilities  for  Crux,  who  was  always  firing 
telegrams  at  him  to  keep  him  up  to  the  mark.  He  needed 
it.  He  was  apt  to  let  everything  go  in  the  soft  south-west 
wind  and  rain  of  Ireland. 

They  drove  out  to  Black  Rock,  along  the  side  of  the  hills 
that  fringed  with  mossy  green  the  right  of  the  bay,  in  the 
beautiful  September  morning.  The  road  winding  up  and 
down  the  length  of  the  hills  in  its  white  loneliness,  ran  be- 
tween their  wheels  until  they  came  almost  to  frowning  Carrick- 
more  itself,  after  which  they  dropped  down  by  easy  stages 
to  the  little  mushroom  village  nestling  beneath.  Above  them, 
perching  perilous  on  the  very  edge  of  the  precipice,  clung 
a  little  grey  stone  chapel,  one  end  fallen  into  ruins,  looking 
bleakly  out  across  the  wastes  of  the  Atlantic  towards  the  har- 
bours of  heaven.  To  Finn  it  seemed  that  in  it  lived  the  soul 
of  the  place,  over  which  it  watched  in  tender  austerity. 

In  his  pocket  he  had  an  introduction  from  Father  Con  to 
Father  Joseph  Hennessey,  the  parish  priest  of  Black  Rock. 


n8  GODS 

"For,"  said  Father  Con,  "to  try  and  storm  Black  Rock  with- 
out first  getting  round  Father  Hennessey,  who  is  an  enemy 
of  me  own,  is  the  same  thing  as  to  storm  heaven  without 
going  through  purgatory."  To  Finn's  enquiring  look,  he  had 
gone  on:  "  'Tis  like  this,  Finn  boy" — (for  they  had  got  to 
that  stage) — "I  believe  in  fairies,  though  maybe  it's  against 
me  religion — there's  a  lot  of  pagan  in  the  Irishman — but  now, 
there's  Father  Hennessey,  he  doesn't  believe  in  them — he 
hates  them:"  he  said  it  in  wistful  savagery.  "And  there  ye 
have  the  head  and  the  tail  of  it." 

Finn  began  to  think  on  this  cryptic  pronouncement  after 
he  had  followed  the  directions  of  a  Hercules  enswathed  in  a 
blue  sweater,  a  three  days'  growth  of  iron-grey  stubble  on 
his  face  and  with  the  keen  blue  eye  that  conies  from  salt  water 
and  hard  weather.  "  'Tis  up  there,  yer  honour."  One  great 
arm  had  pointed  up  the  hill. 

He  walked  through  the  one  and  only  street  of  the  village, 
for  he  was  going  where  a  horse  could  not  follow,  and  he  had 
left  Johnny  the  Saint  with  his  animal  at  the  little  public  house 
where  they  had  been  both  pounced  upon  by  the  proprietor,  a 
little  yellow-bearded  griping  man  with  a  nose  half-way  be- 
tween a  hawk  and  a  parrot  and  a  pair  of  burning  brown  eyes. 
As  he  walked  between  the  whitewashed  cabins  with  the 
thatched  roofs,  the  women,  some  of  them,  the  older  ones,  with 
pipes  in  their  mouths,  which,  in  courtesy  to  the  stranger,  they 
smoked  under  the  lee  of  their  aprons,  continued  to  carry  on 
their  conversation  in  the  Irish  which  was  the  language  of  the 
place,  though  some  of  the  "Turks"  "had  a  little  English"  for 
use  in  the  dwellings  of  civilisation,  such  as  Dunhallow,  where 
they  went  in  their  hookers  to  sell  their  fish,  and  some  of  the 
younger  ones  spoke  it  quite  well.  He  felt  the  delicate  con- 
sideration of  these  mothers  and  wives  of  the  giants  who 
lounged  over  the  half  doors  of  the  cabins  who  did  not  let  the 
silence  come  that  would  have  told  him  they  were  watching  the 
stranger. 

He  caught  a  stray  maidin  bragh  or  "modd'n-bedaw"  as  it 
sounded  to  him,  which  he  was  to  know  was  the  Irish  "Good- 
morning!  "  and  found  as  he  advanced  that  he  was  preceded  by  a 
light  cavalry  of  boys  or  girls,  he  could  not  tell  which,  for 
many  that  looked  like  boys  were  dressed  in  petticoats,  who, 
long-legged,  bright-eyed  and  keen-faced,  fled  before  him,  the 


THE  LAND  OF  SHADOWS  119 

bare  legs  skirmishing  under  his  eyes  into  the  doorways,  dis- 
placing the  slumbrous  pigs  which,  with  the  fowls,  had  the  free 
run  of  the  houses.  The  blue  smoke  from  the  cabins  seemed 
to  blend  with  the  bluer  air  and  drove  down  a  little  into  the 
narrow  way,  carrying  that  tang  of  peat  which  from  the  day  at 
Dunhallow  station  had  become  for  him  the  scent  of  Ireland. 
Up  aloft  a  great  sea  fowl  slid  down  the  wind  which  had  begun 
to  call  to  him  over  that  booming  of  waters  of  which  he  was 
now,  as  he  came  up  to  the  higher  ground,  for  the  first  time 
aware.  Below  him,  the  rocks  ran  black  and  sullen  back  to- 
wards Dunhallow  in  one  unbroken  line  far  as  the  eye  could 
follow  under  the  shallow  green  waters  of  this  iron  coast,  save 
in  one  place,  directly  beneath,  where  the  iron  was  broken  by 
a  submarine  cleft  of  a  deep  dark  green  that  made  into  a  little 
circle  of  deep  water  at  the  coast  end  of  which  he  saw  the  life- 
boat shed.  Beyond  it,  curtseying  like  ducks  upon  the  long 
heaving  swell  outside  in  the  open  sea,  a  dozen  half-decked  boats 
at  anchor,  clumsy  bluff-bowed  affairs  which  foreshortened  neck- 
like  masts,  at  the  head  of  each  mast  a  pulley  like  the  head 
of  a  fowl,  which,  for  all  their  clumsiness,  seemed  instinct  with 
life  and  rode  the  swells  easily  and  dry. 

The  priest's  house  lay  on  the  top  of  the  rise  commanding 
the  village.  It  was  a  square  house  built  of  grey  limestone 
and  roofed  with  slate.  To  Finn  it  looked  a  stronghold  of  the 
faith,  but  it  had  an  air  of  stark  comfort.  About  it,  pecked  a 
small  mob  of  hens  and  cocks  whilst  a  dozen  ducks  paddled  in 
the  weed  of  the  stream  that  ran  past  it. 

As  he  walked  up  the  steps,  the  smell  of  bacon  and  eggs 
with  a  more  indistinct  smell  of  whisky,  which  he  first  thought 
was  peat,  met  his  nostrils.  He  was  shown  by  a  little  house- 
keeper, who  was  almost  a  duplicate  of  Kitty,  into  a  hard  horse- 
hair parlour  of  shiny  chairs  and  a  sofa,  with  a  miniature  book- 
case filled  with  volumes  that  looked  as  if  they  had  never  been 
read,  the  whole  of  a  bareness  that  brought  back  for  a  moment 
Father  Lestrange's  room  at  the  Seminary. 

als  that  the  sort  of  thing  ye're  bringing  to  his  riverence,  I 
ask?  Ah!  Take  it  away  and  bring  him  another.  De  ye  think 
I'd  be  insultin'  a  holy  man  like  the  Father  with  that  thing 
of  bone  and  feather?  that  .  .  ." 

The  voice  came  piercing  to  his  ears.  He  looked  out  of  the 
window  and  saw  a  wretched,  dejected-looking  woman,  her  face 


120  GODS 

downcast  under  the  shawl  that  had  fallen  back  upon  her  thin 
neck,  taking  back  from  a  hand  that  showed  itself  across  the 
edge  of  the  window  a  miserable  looking  chicken.  It  was  her 
offering  to  the  Godhead,  the  widow's  mite,  but  it  had  been  re- 
fused. 

In  the  passage  he  heard  a  puffing  and  blowing,  and  then 
the  door  burst  open,  disclosing  an  apoplectic  round  face  with 
some  scant  grey  hair  on  the  head,  all  set  upon  that  gargan- 
tuan body  which  he  had  begun  to  associate  with  Irish  theology. 
The  whole  was  clothed  in  a  priest's  coat,  covered  with  ancient 
snuffings  and  gravyings. 

"Ah,  good  mornin',  Mr.  Fintaine,"  said  the  big-faced  man. 
"Ye're  from  England,  I  hear."  There  was  a  hurricane  note  in 
the  voice,  a  note  of  bluster  that  was  almost  a  threat.  It  was 
not  what  he  said,  but  the  way  he  said  it. 

Finn  remembered  the  chicken  and  began  to  understand 
Father  Con's  explanation  about  the  fairies.  But  it  took  him 
that  interview  and  many  others  that  were  to  follow  to  dis- 
cover that  Father  Joseph  Hennessey  was  one  of  those  tyrannic, 
loud-voiced,  bullying,  whisky-drinking  prelates  who  are  fortu- 
nately rare  in  Ireland.  He  was  the  tyrant  of  the  village,  which 
feared  him  as  the  vicar  of  God  on  earth. 

Finn  explained  the  object  of  his  visit,  to  which  the  priest 
listened  with  heavy  indifference,  until  he  said:  "Mr.  Crux  is 
anxious  to  bring  some  money  into  Black  Rock." 

At  the  word  "money"  a  little  light  came  into  the  two  small 
grey  eyes.  The  body  took  on  an  aggressive  interested  corpu- 
lence. The  veins  in  the  thickened  temples  swelled. 

"Ah,"  said  his  reverence,  "now  you're  talkin'." 

"You're  a  heretic,  Mr.  Fintaine,  Father  O'Dempsey  tells 
me."  (He  always  pronounced  Finn's  name  in  that  way.)  "But 
ye  see  the  House  of  God,  the  house  of  the  one  and  true 
church,"  he  said  it  pugnaciously,  "up  there  on  the  hill.  Sure, 
'tis  the  shame  that  we  can't  put  in  a  coloured  window  behind 
the  altar.  Sure  isn't  it  that  that's  a  disgrace  to  civilised  peo- 
ple? Bring  the  money  into  Black  Rock  that'll  decorate  the 
Housej}^  God,  and  I'm  your  friend. 

"We'll  be  havin'  a  glass  of  whisky  on  the  strength  of  it," 
he  added  after  a  moment,  and  looked  as  nearly  shocked  as  a 
man  of  his  habit  could  when  he  learned  from  Finn's  bash- 


THE  LAND  OF  SHADOWS  121 

ful  lips  that  he  was  a  teetotaler.  For  Finn's  father  and 
mother  had  brought  him  up  in  a  holy  fear  of  alcohol. 

"Well  I'll  have  wan  myself,"  he  said  as  he  leant  down  to 
some  little  recess  under  the  bookcase,  from  which  he  took  a 
bottle  of  what  he  said  "never  paid  the  Queen  sixpence"  and 
drank  a  pretty  stiff  tumbler  neat,  and  then  another.  After 
which  he  took  up  the  matter  of  the  fishing  with  Finn. 

"There's  a  good  friend  of  mine,  and  of  the  church,  down 
there — a  man  named  Higgins.  He  owns  a  public  house  and 
the  people  call  him  the  gombeen  man,  for  he  lends  a  trifle  of 
money  now  and  then  to  oblige  his  neighbours.  We  must  talk 
to  him  about  it."  The  little  eyes  measured  Finn  a  moment, 
and  then  added,  dryly:  "I  expect  he'll  be  wantin'  a  finger 
in  the  pie.  Make  him  your  friend,  Mr.  Fintaine,  if  you  take 
my  tip."  He  smiled  slyly. 

There  was  venality,  cupidity,  cunning,  in  that  smile.  It 
was  the  same  man  who  a  moment  before  had  been  talking  about 
decorating  the  House  of  God,  the  little  chapel  up  there  on  the 
edge  of  the  cliff.  And  talking  earnestly,  as  Finn  saw.  It  was  a 
new  view  upon  the  faith  of  Ireland. 

Finn  found  that  he  could  no  more  divide  Ireland  into  sheep 
and  goats  than  into  Protestants  and  Catholics.  The  thing  that 
twined  itself  in  and  about  all  was  religion,  and  that  religion 
Catholicism. 

Although  they  did  not  know  it,  Sam  Sligo,  the  Reverend 
Dick,  even  that  monk-like  inspector  of  the  Royal  Irish  Con- 
stabulary, all  these  people  and  their  congregations  were  Catho- 
lic. Only  one  of  two  things  were  possible  in  Ireland — either 
Paganism  or  the  Catholicism  which  had  displaced  it.  Ire- 
land was  Catholic,  She  was  the  Land  of  Shadows  and  of  Faith. 


XII 

IMPERIAL  DOGMA 

Finn  returned  to  London  to  find  it  meaningless.  He  was  re- 
turning nominally  to  report  to  Crux,  but  actually  to  find  out 
why  articles  on  Ireland  had  not  been  appearing  in  "The  Earth," 
which  he  had  seen  every  day.  Each  morning  he  had  opened  his 
paper  with  that  anticipatory  pringling  in  feet  and  solar  plexus, 
a  pringling  to  be  followed  by  the  sinking  at  the  pit  of  the 
stomach  in  the  heavy  leaded  silence  of  the  columns.  And  so  he 
would  turn  from  his  breakfast  with  loathing.  Finn's  eating 
was  much  affected  by  his  emotions. 

There  had  been  articles  by  Billy  Pickles  and  the  General, 
which  had  resulted  in  a  solemn  fulmination  by  Professor  Dust 
about  the  revival  of  superstition.  Matters  had  been  still  fur- 
ther complicated  by  something  that  had  shocked  the  scientific 
world — the  incursion  of  the  very  distinguished  physicist,  Sir 
Raymond  Hilary,  into  the  debate,  as  he  said,  "on  the  side  of 
the  angels,"  when  he  had  disgusted  his  scientific  brethren  by 
his  defence  of  miracles,  whereas,  as  Sir  Lancaster  Hogge,  who 
had  rushed  in  head  down,  pointed  out  in  high  snorting  phrases, 
there  were  only  the  miracles  of  science. 

It  was  into  this  melee  that  the  Bishop  of  Whitechapel  had 
poked  his  benevolent  but  bewildered  head,  losing  a  good  deal 
of  wool,  both  to  Sir  Raymond  and  Sir  Lancaster,  in  the  process 
— the  former  gently  patronising  to  "old-fashioned  conceptions," 
the  latter,  savage,  and  worrying  the  old  gentleman  bulldog 
fashion  before  being  called  off  by  the  editor  himself,  who  closed 
the  correspondence,  but  not  before  somebody,  who  signed  him- 
self "Lucifer,"  and  whom  Finn  suspected  to  be  Paris  Asthar, 
had  got  in  amongst  the  lot  of  them,  and,  literally,  raised  the 
very  devil. 

Jock  McAdam,  the  Socialist  fanatic,  whom  Lestrange  had 
once  called  "the  spiritual  leader  of  the  Social  Democracy,"  and 
who  himself  was  a  deeply  religious  man,  had  also  joined  in, 

122 


IMPERIAL  DOGMA  123 

probably  for  ulterior  purposes,  for  he  was  the  most  persistent 
propagandist  in  England.  He  wrote  well  enough,  but  had  ob- 
viously no  business  in  that  galley,  and  his  pungent  periods 
about  Internationalism  as  the  new  world-religion  seemed  to 
Finn  far-fetched  and  remote.  They  had  nothing  to  do  with 
reality,  although  MacAdam  and  his  gospel  seemed  real  enough 
to  many.  When,  however,  he  asked  himself  what  reality  was? 
he  could  only  reply  "Ireland,"  which  was,  of  course,  ridiculous. 

As  he  got  into  the  Forestford  train  at  Liverpool  Street,  he 
saw  Mr.  Titterling  on  the  platform  saying  good-bye  to  a  pretty 
young  woman  who  was  about  to  become  a  mother.  Despite  the 
cheerless  November  day,  he  looked  very  well  dressed  indeed 
in  a  close-fitting  coat  of  blue  Melton,  eyeglass  and  shiny  topper. 
Finn  knew  the  signs.  He  was  obviously  after  "a  good  day," 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact  had  been  "pigeon-plucking"  in  a 
Shaftesbury  Avenue  billiard  saloon  where  he  had  lost  two 
games  at  moderate  stakes  to  what  he  called  "a  gilded  mug," 
and  had  won  the  third  at  £50  a  side. 

He  was  so  earnestly  engaged  with  the  young  woman,  who 
seemed  to  be  tearfully  expostulating,  that  he  did  not  see  Finn, 
who,  from  his  corner,  saw  the  girl  attempt  to  kiss  him  as  the 
train  moved  out  and  the  man,  who  had  been  scanning  her 
through  his  monocle  with  an  air  of  good-natured  despair,  drew 
back. 

The  impression  it  had  made  on  him  quickly  passed  when 
he  reached  Ash  Villa  to  find  the  Fontaine  affairs  desperate,  his 
mother  in  tears,  his  little  grandmother  in  praise  and  prayer 
in  her  bedroom,  and  his  father  dumb  before  the  Lord.  Aunt 
Judy,  after  giving  Finn  one  of  those  rare  smiles  of  hers,  which 
so  transformed  her  ugliness,  for  they  were  very  fond  of  each 
other,  sat  in  the  background,  resting  her  nose  against  the 
pattern  of  the  wallpaper. 

The  coal  trade  had  been  going  from  bad  to  much  worse, 
the  MacGlusky  becoming  tougher  as  he  became  more  religious, 
a  combination  regarded  by  his  father  in  admiring  confusion. 
The  slack  had  increased  and  the  weight  decreased.  Some  of 
the  customers  had  become  mutinous,  others  blasphemous.  The 
door  had  been  banged  in  his  face  the  length  of  a  road,  and 
one  man  had  even  threatened  "to  take  the  law  into  his  own 
hands,"  whatever  that  might  mean.  "I  am  a  'ornery  cuss," 
he  had  said,  "when  I'm  roused.  "Now  I'm  roused."  He  had 


124  GODS 

begun  to  remove  his  coat  to  Jemmy's  dismayed  astonishment, 
and  he,  the  bag,  and  the  notebook  had  been  forced  into  stra- 
tegic retreat. 

And  all  this  was  being  complicated  by  his  boots,  now  dis- 
integrating. 

He  had  been  spending  his  days  in  running  backwards  and 
forwards  to  the  coal  depot,  trying  to  make  things  right,  and 
had  been  received  by  the  terrible  MacGlusky  with  contumely 
and  invidious  comparisons  with  a  smart  young  fellow  who,  with 
the  advantage  of  not  possessing  a  conscience,  had  just  come 
on.  When  he  had  timidly  asked  his  tyrant  how  he  could  re- 
concile short  weight  with  religion,  that  gentleman  had  taken 
refuge  in  blasphemous  metaphysics. 

Finally,  Finn  heard,  as  a  sort  of  addendum,  that  his  father 
had  been  "investing"  in  gold.  It  was  one  of  the  Spellbind 
companies. 

There  was  something  in  the  grey  eyes  of  his  father,  now 
venous  and  glassy,  that  reminded  him  of  a  rabbit  he  had 
once  seen  chased  by  dogs.  He  was  scared.  His  beard  was 
straggling  and  grey  and  his  head  seemed  to  have  shrunk. 

Whilst  his  mother  was  in  the  midst  of  this  recital,  before 
which  his  father  sat,  dumbly,  they  heard  a  voice  in  the  hall 
which  voluntarily  brought  to  Finn  the  bull  of  Bashan. 

It  had  been  said  of  his  uncle  Robert,  his  father's  brother, 
that  he  was  the  most  offensively  healthy  man  in  London.  It 
was  certain  at  least  that  Robert  Fountain,  or  Bobs,  as  he  was 
usually  known,  had  a  most  depressing  effect  upon  the  sick 
and  ailing,  whom  he  made  to  feel  as  worms.  Bobs  Foun- 
tain was  a  fresh-air  fiend,  who  worshipped  a  triune  deity  of 
water,  onions  and  nuts.  For  all  his  sixty-five  years,  he  thought 
nothing  of  walking  the  twenty  miles  to  Forestford  on  a  Sun- 
day morning  from  his  rooms  in  Muswell  Hill,  lying  on  his  back 
in  the  garden  to  absorb  anything  that  might  be  going  whether 
of  sun  or  rain  (he  was  cold-proof,  as  shock-proof),  eating 
a  score  of  onions  out  of  the  little  bag  that  was  his  invariable 
accompaniment,  and  then  walking  back  in  the  evening.  They 
heard  him  now  in  the  passage: 

"Nuts,  my  boy!  Nuts!  Concentrated  sunshine.  That's 
your  mark!"  He  filled  the  passage  with  his  roarings. 

His  voice  came  in  a  Jovian  blast,  which  blew  open  the  door 
of  the  little  back  sitting  room  to  admit  a  remarkably  vivid 


IMPERIAL  DOGMA  125 

gentleman  of  fresh  complexion  and  snowy  hair,  which  sprouted 
from  scalp,  brow,  ear  and  nostril.  Behind  him,  like  a  bird 
of  ill-omen,  stalked  Aunt  Bella. 

"Jemmy,  old  cock,  buck  up!  Just  blew  in  to  wish  you 
luck." 

He  advanced  upon  his  downcast  brother,  whom  he  hit  in 
the  small  of  the  back  with  a  hand  like  a  piece  of  gnarled  teak. 

"Bella  here  has  told  me  all  about  it.  Never  say  die  till 
you're  fly-blown."  He  bore  down  upon  his  shrinking  sister- 
in-law,  who  hated  him  as  the  plague,  but  who  met  his  smacking 
salute  with  a  perfunctory  peck. 

"I've  been  telling  Robert,  Fanny,  all  about  it,"  explained 
Aunt  Bella.  Finn  knew  that  explanation.  A  thing  of  hints 
and  malignant  suppression. 

"We  must  bear  what  the  Lord  sends  us,"  she  went  on  in 
pious  aspiration.  She  looked  on  Jemmy  with  savage  com- 
miseration. 

"But  this  is  what  comes  from  wobbling.  The  Lord  hates  a 
wobbler.  Even  worse  than  he  hates  the  unbeliever."  She 
darted  a  glance  at  Uncle  Bobs,  who  was  quite  unmoved. 

"Nonsense,"  said  that  gentleman.  "Nothing  of  the  kind, 
Bella.  Haven't  been  in  a  church  for  thirty  years,  except  the 
great  Church  of  Nature"  (he  always  spoke  in  capitals)  "and 
look  at  this."  He  took  Aunt  Bella's  black-gloved  hand  and 
holding  the  first  and  second  fingers  stiffly  between  his  own 
darted  them  into  the  middle  of  his  thigh,  to  that  lady's  aston- 
ished indignation.  "Nuts,  old  girl,  nuts.  And  fresh  air!" 

"Cheer  up,  old  son,  you'll  soon  be  dead,  and  when  you're 
dead,  well  you  are  dead."  Uncle  Bobs  had  no  doubts  about 
mortality,  but  his  mortality  was  as  nearly  immortal  as  any- 
thing earthly  could  be.  It  was  his  universal  panacea  for  any- 
one in  really  low  health  to  tell  him  that  his  sufferings  would 
soon  be  over,  in  a  jovial  rationalist  voice. 
"Judy,  my  jewel,  my  light  o'  love!"  (Uncle  Bobs  had  the 
occasional  lapses  of  a  life  that  had  been  freely  natural),  "how 
goes  it?  Still  in  the  doldrums?  Won't  you  give  us  a  kiss?" 
It  was  Uncle  Bobs'  affectionate  plural. 

He  skipped  over  to  her,  but  Aunt  Judy,  her  nose  still  rest- 
ing against  the  wall,  turned  her  goat-like  eyes  to  smile  a 
little  at  her  irrepressible  brother-in-law,  whom,  though  no- 


126  GODS 

body  knew  it,  she  had  once  loved  in  secret.    Aunt  Judy  had  a 
tendency  to  secret  loves.    But  they  remained  secret. 

At  all  this,  Finn's  mother  stared  in  a  sort  of  coma.  There 
she  sat,  fixing  her  hated  brother-in-law,  Medusa-like. 

Finn  knew  the  atmosphere.  Since  Ireland,  it  was  unbear-* 
able.  He  wanted  to  escape  from  it  as  from  a  prison.  He 
sneaked  out  of  the  room,  caught  his  hat  off  the  hatstand,  and 
walked  over  to  the  Titterlings,  as  he  always  did  when  he  was 
in  trouble.  Mrs.  Titterling,  in  her  way,  which  took  some- 
thing of  its  comfort  from  the  smoothly  parted  hair  over  the 
grey  eyes,  acted  as  a  sort  of  balm  to  him,  and  little  Mary 
as  something  else — he  could  not  say  what.  But  he  loved  to 
speak  with  her. 

The  door  was  opened  by  Mr.  Titterling,  a  subdued  Titter- 
ling  and  quite  other  than  the  Titterling  of  Liverpool  Street, 
although  he  was  still  in  patent  leathers.  His  face  looked  as 
though  he  had  been  fighting  with  sweeps,  and  the  high  glossy 
collar  was  streaked,  from  which  Finn  gathered  that  he  had 
"run  short  of  "  'baccy"  and  had  been  skirmishing  in  the  grate 
for  stumps.  One  dirty  forefinger  was  placed  upon  the  weak 
mouth. 

"They're  here,"  he  said  dolefully,  and  let  him  in. 

There  came  the  drone  of  voices  from  the  little  back  draw- 
ing room,  into  which  Finn  was  shown,  to  find  two  theologi- 
cally constipated  elders.  They  looked  extraordinarily  alike, 
although  they  really  were  not  related,  as  they  rose  in  their 
dark  nankeen-blue  frock-coats,  quartered  by  large  plaited 
horse-hair  buttons,  with  their  white  hair  parted  in  precisely 
the  same  place  on  the  right,  the  hair  falling  over  the  left  eye, 
and  their  long  shaven  upper  lips  and  fringe  of  grey  beard, 
with  the  strong,  rather  cruel  noses  with  the  deep  pits  on  each 
side. 

They  were  introduced  by  Mrs.  Titterling  as  Elder  Parkin- 
son and  Elder  Tomkins,  and  then  they  sat  down. 

In  his  hand  he  found  that  of  Mary,  who  had  been  waiting 
her  chance.  She  snuggled  close  to  him,  drawing  down  his  head 
to  kiss.  The  elders  dropped  their  eyes.  Mr.  Titterling  sat  in 
the  corner,  rather  like  a  naughty  boy  who  has  been  caught  in 
the  act,  muttering  to  himself  unutterable  things.  The  room 
stank  intolerably  of  tobacco. 

Mr.  Titterling  was  badly  frightened.     Before   Finn's  en- 


IMPERIAL  DOGMA  127 

trance,  the  two  elders  had  been  talking  about  hell,  with  spe- 
cial reference  to  backsliders,  and  the  only  thing  which  pre- 
vented another  instantaneous  conversion  of  Mr.  Titterling 
was  the  feel  of  the  twenty  crisp  £5  notes  in  his  inside  pocket, 
which  he  had  won  that  morning.  "I'm  damned  if  I  don't  think 
a  £5  note  will  yet  stand  between  me  and  salvation,"  he  was 
saying  to  himself. 

".  .  .  hell,"  one  of  the  elders  was  saying.  "Can  we 
imagine  what  that  simple  word  means?  Eternity.  Can  we 
imagine  what  that  means?  And  then  hell  through  eternity?  It 
is  an  awful  thought.  If  each  blade  of  grass  on  the  earth 
represented  a  million  of  years,  and  one  added  them  all  to- 
gether, that  would  not  be  eternity.  If  each  grain  of  sand 
were  a  million  of  years,  that  would  not  be  eternity.  If  each 
molecule  of  each  grain  were  the  millions  of  millions  of  years 
represented  by  all  the  grains  of  sand  of  the  world,  that  would 
still  not  even  be  the  shadow  of  eternity.  If  the  time  repre- 
sented by  all  these  molecules  were  multiplied  by  a  million  times 
a  million  and  the  result  multiplied  by  itself  each  second  since 
time  first  was  to  the  end  of  the  world,  even  that  would  not 
be  eternity.  And  through  all  these  aeons  of  time,  unmeasur- 
able  by  man,  never  ending,  must  the  sinner  sit  in  the  flames 
that  are  never  quenched,  that  burn  as  no  mortal  fire  burns, 
for  ever  and  for  ever  looking  across  the  chasm  of  the  pit  to 
the  faithful  Elect  sitting  in  the  bosom  of  the  Eternal,  safe  for 
ever." 

The  gentleman,  who  appeared  to  have  concentrated  upon 
his  subject,  glanced  from  time  to  time  at  the  man  in  the  cor- 
ner, who  several  times,  especially  when  the  grains  of  sand 
began  to  multiply,  nearly  broke  down,  onlv  being  saved  from 
grace  by  the  crispness  of  the  Bank  of  England  notes  which  he 
felt  himself  compelled  to  press.  They  crackled  a  little  in  the 
stillness  that  followed. 

Mrs.  Titterling  looked  like  a  tear-stained  Madonna  as  she 
sat  in  her  little  chair  and  thought  of  the  impending  eternal 
separation  from  the  man  whom  she  loved.  For  all  its  mild- 
ness, there  was  something  of  desperation  and  rebellion  in  the 
eye. 

But  little  Mary  was  not  horror  stricken.  She  listened  with 
all  her  eyes.  Before  even  the  most  terrible  arithmetic,  the 


128  GODS 

little  mouth  set  itself  and  the  eyes  looked  out  calmly.  In  the 
stillness  the  little  voice  came: 

"That  means  that  everybody  in  the  whole  world  except 
the  Spirit's  Elect  are  going  to  be  damned,  doesn't  it?"  The 
father  looked  up  with  a  gleam  of  hope.  He  had  a  curious 
confidence  in  his  eldest. 

"Yes,"  said  the  elder,  dourly. 

"That  means  that  if  father  dies  now  and  Finn  here,  who 
is  my  friend,  mother  and  I  would  be  up  there,"  (she  looked 
vaguely  at  the  ceiling),  "with  God,  and  father  down  there" 
(she  looked  at  the  floor  as  though  she  could  see  into  the  pit). 
"And  that  however  much  mother  and  I  tried  to  help  father 
it  would  be  no  use.  God  wouldn't  listen.  Isn't  that  so?" 

"Yes,"  came  again. 

"Then  I  don't  believe  in  Him." 

The  tiny  voice  sounded  with  dreadful  distinctness  in  the 
little  room,  as  Finn's  own  had  once  sounded  that  day  of  Father 
Lestrange's  visit  to  Ash  Villa.  One  of  the  elders  had  risen  in 
horror,  his  large  white  hands  upraised.  Her  mother  stared 
at  her  with  parted  lips.  But  the  gleam  of  hope  lighted  itself 
more  strongly  in  the  father's  eye. 

"Oh!  Mary!  Mary!"  said  her  mother.     It  was  enough. 

"I  can't  believe  in  a  God,  mama,  who  can  never  hear 
prayer  whether  in  this  world  or  the  next."  She  stood  up,  her 
little  hands  clenched  behind  her  back.  "I  can't.  Do  you 
think  you  or  I  could  be  happy  to  see  father  screaming  in  the 
flames  of  hell  and  we  safe?  I'd  rather  be  with  father." 

Finn  had  no  clear  recollection  of  what  happened  after  that. 
There  was  a  confusion  of  shocked  elder,  tearful  Mrs.  Titter- 
ling,  a  rescussitated  Mr.  Titterling  with  monocle,  and  a  defiant 
Mary,  sent  to  bed,  but  not  before  she  had  time  to  whisper: 
"What  is  the  Irish  God,  Finn?  Is  he  the  same  as  the  God  of 
the  Spirit's  Elect?"  And  when  Finn,  out  of  the  fulness  of 
his  heart  and  experience,  could  tell  her  that  the  God  of  the 
Irish  was  a  merciful  God,  even  to  heretics  who  knew  no 
better,  and,  on  the  whole,  a  just  God,  she  went  to  bed  with  a 
happy  smile  and  to  sleep  hi  happy  dreaming. 

The  next  thing  he  remembered  was  finding  himself  at  tea  in 
the  kitchen  opposite  the  two  elders,  who,  to  Finn's  indigna- 
tion— he  only  managed  to  secure  two  and  a  tail — consumed 
quantities  of  sardines  washed  down  by  buckets  of  tea — sar- 


IMPERIAL  DOGMA  129 

dines  paid  for  by  "gilded  mugs"  of  the  racecourse  and  billiard 
saloon. 

From  where  Finn  sat  with  Mr.  Titterling  hanging  over  the 
kitchen  fender,  he  heard  the  elders  making  a  frightful  drone 
and  denunciation  before  the  Lord  from  the  little  drawing  room. 
Once,  he  thought,  he  heard  the  name  of  Aunt  Judy,  but  that 
might  have  been  imagination.  Mr.  Titterling,  despite  the  last 
ten  minutes,  was  still  in  a  shaken  condition  and  trembled  as 
the  hymns  of  a  strange  bitter-sweetness  came  along  the  pas- 
sage. And  even  to  Finn  there  was  something  terrifying  in 
those  tunes  of  the  minor  with  the  words  that  accompanied 
them.  "Damned  if  I  can  call  my  soul  my  own,"  said  the 
wretched  man,  ruefully — the  man  who  had  just  told  Finn:  "I 
won  a  monkey  on  old  Do-be-Quick." 

The  full  sweet  touch  of  Mrs.  Titterling  in  the  contralto  that 
hung  under  the  menace  of  the  bass  came  to  him  where  he  sat, 
and  then  the  words  of  the  hymn  he  had  heard  so  often  there: 

But  oh !  the  avenging  fires  of  hell 
That  choke  and  scorch  and  writhe, 

Whilst  in  the  midst 

The  sinner  sits 
In  torment — yet  alive! 

When  he  got  home  he  found  a  letter  from  Asthar  on  the 
shelf  of  the  hatstand  inviting  him  to  "The  Cloisters"  on  Fri- 
day, following  his  original  invitation  that  day  in  Thrum's  room. 
"You  seem  to  have  interested  the  great  man,"  he  said,  in  that 
kindly  comforting  way  of  his.  "He  actually  condescended  to 
remember  that  you  were  back  from  Ireland — the  country  I 
love  so  much  because  I  have  never  been  in  it." 

Finn's  heart  beat  tumultous.  For  a  moment  he  thought  it 
was  because  the  hair  of  Deirdre  Asthar  had  brushed  itself 
across  the  page  he  was  reading — then  he  found  it  was  Thrum. 
So  he  was  interested  in  the  articles.  Ambition,  which  in  Ire- 
land had  seemed  so  far  away,  was  gripping  him  here  in  London. 
And  to-morrow  he  was  to  see  Thrum.  He  had  written  for  an 
appointment. 

On  the  next  day  he  found  Thrum  with  his  back  to  a  roar- 
ing fire,  the  usual  long  black  cigar  in  his  white  teeth,  and 
that  white  lock  of  hair  lying  dankly  across  his  forehead. 

"Well?"  said  Thrum.    That  unsmiling  monosyllable  had  dis- 


130  GODS 

composed  many  mighty  ones  in  its  time.  It  should  have  anni- 
hilated the  ungainly,  nervous-looking  boy  on  the  other  side  of 
the  room,  but  it  did  not.  It  only  made  him  savage  and  fear- 
less. 

"I  have  come,  Sir,  to  ask  why  you  haven't  printed  my  Irish 
articles?"  It  was  not  an  enquiry.  It  was  a  challenge. 

The  man  before  him  seemed  to  relax  a  trifle.  He  was  an  un- 
smiling man,  was  the  great  newspaper  proprietor,  but  some- 
thing that  might  have  been  the  ghost  of  a  twinkle  trembled  in 
the  eye  of  hard  indifference  and  flickered  out. 

"Because  they  are  not  what  I  want,"  he  said,  simply.  "You 
have  not  been  loyal." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Sir?  I  have  written  as  well  as  I  was 
able.  I  have  written  what  I  believe  to  be  true.  I  have  been 
loyal  to  my  beliefs." 

"Loyalty  to  your  paper  is  as  necessary  as  loyalty  to  your 
God,"  went  on  the  big  man,  as  though  he  had  not  spoken.  He 
looked  steadfastly  at  the  end  of  the  fine  grey  ash.  "And  The 
Earth'  doesn't  want  poetry  or  fine  writing,"  he  added,  ab- 
sently. 

"  'The  Earth'  is  the  Englishman's  Bible,  just  as  the  earth 
itself  is  the  Englishman's.  I  have  to  be  as  careful  what  I 
give  to  my  congregation  as  the  other  Holy  Father."  That 
twinkle  came  again,  trembled  frostily  and  vanished.  "The 
truth  is  revealed  only  to  the  few.  They  must  be  careful  how 
they  give  it  out,  for  few  can  bear  it.  Fleet  street  has  also  its 
index  expur  gat  onus"  And  now  the  man  before  him  had  ceased 
to  twinkle.  He  was  speaking  in  dead  earnest,  as  Finn  could 
see,  with  a  jaw  that  brought  back  that  of  Crux.  There  was 
something  compressed,  suppressed,  about  his  utterance  as  of 
power  held  in  leash,  banking  up.  "Not  a  word,  not  a  comma, 
goes  into  'The  Earth'  that  is  not  considered  for  a  congre- 
gation that  extends  throughout  the  world.  Ours  is  the  power. 
We  have  the  world  to  consider.  That  is  why  we  speak  to  the 
world  by  suggestion  and  by  suppression,  as  the  masters  of  men 
have  always  spoken."  Father  Lestrange  had  once  said  some- 
thing to  him  like  that,  that  day  in  the  bare  white-washed 
study  at  the  Seminary. 

And  so  it  was  that  Finn  Fontaine  found  himself  in  the  roar 
of  Fleet  street  with  confused  memory  of  an  extraordinary  half 
hour — one  of  those  queer  uncontrollable  bursts  of  confidence 


IMPERIAL  DOGMA  131 

for  which  the  newspaper  king  was  noted.  Was  it  true  that 
he  had  dared  to  ask  that  man  back  there  why  he  did  not  print 
the  truth?  That  he  had  asked  him  how  he  applied  his  faith 
to  the  workaday  world?  Whether  there  was  to  be  one  law 
for  the  masters  and  another  for  the  people? 

And  there  came  to  him  the  solitary  lapse  into  a  rare,  in- 
dulgent humour  of  a  man  who  had  never  been  spoken  to  like 
that  before,  which  had  shown  itself  in  a  veiled  explanation,  a 
perfect  dovetailing  of  ideas,  the  flawless  mosaic  of  his  faith  in 
Power,  but  made  as  much  to  himself  as  to  his  auditor.  At  last, 
his  division  of  the  world  into  the  Powerful  and  the  Power- 
less. And  there  had  come  to  him  again,  even  up  there  in  his 
room,  that  queer  contradiction  of  the  words  of  the  grown-ups 
and  their  actions.  Yet  he  knew  that  this  man  was  genuine. 
His  power-faith  was  as  real  to  him  as  Father  Con's  Roman 
Catholicism  or  Mrs.  Titterling's  Spirit's  Elect. 

And  so  he  had  gone  out  of  the  room  humbled,  but  un- 
subdued. 

For  it  came  to  him  in  a  flash  of  consciousness  that  he  was 
in  eruption  against  society.  He  had  begun  to  think  of  him- 
self as  an  artist.  He  had  thought  dimly  that  art  was  to  be 
a  sort  of  saviour,  but,  although  he  did  not  put  it  into  words, 
an  art  informed  by  passion.  And  here  was  Thrum  and  his 
"Earth."  What  was  the  artist  to  them?  Only  something  to 
be  used  in  gathering  power,  and,  after  use,  thrown  into  a  waste 
paper  basket  as  a  housewife  throws  refuse  into  a  dustbin.  That 
was  it.  The  appalling  indifference  not  only  to  the  fine  writing 
that  Thrum  had  mentioned,  but  to  any  of  the  fine  things  of  life. 
The  indifference  to  life  itself.  And  then,  the  contemptuous 
waste  of  human  talent  and  force. 

His  father  and  mother  had  often  spoken  of  "that  great 
and  good  Mr.  Thrum"  and  their  dominion  was  not  quite 
shaken. 

And  then  he  recalled,  vaguely,  incredibly,  that  he  had  said 
something  of  this  indifference,  boyish  and  awkward,  to  Thrum, 
and  that  Thrum  had  looked  at  him  a  moment — he  would  have 
said  something  not  unadmiring  in  the  look  had  it  not  seemed 
like  nonsense — and  had  said:  "The  day  you  change  your 
mind,  come  to  me,  and  I  will  put  you  on  a  high  horse  .  .  .  for 
beggars  sometimes  ride  in  Fleet  Street  ...  but  you  come 
on  my  terms,  not  on  yours." 


132  GODS 

He  was  roused  from  his  reverie  by  somebody  speaking  to  him. 
It  was  Lanthorn.  He  took  the  boy  by  the  coat  sleeve  and* 
said  to  him  excitedly,  but  in  quiet  triumph  in  those  short  jerky 
sentences  which  he  so  often  used  when  interested:  "I  have 
had  Madame  Mironowna,  the  Russian  medium.  She  has  pro- 
duced the  loud-speaking  trumpet  voices.  Another  nail  in  the 
coffin  of  materialism.  Our  Borderland  Bureau  booming.  Over- 
whelmed with  applications  from  people  who  have  lost  rela- 
tives or  friends  and  who  want  communication.  Extraordinary 
series  of  communications.  One  of  them  from  a  tremendous 
personage.  And  now  comes  Sir  Raymond  Hilary.  His  attacks 
in  'The  Earth'  upon  the  strongholds  of  his  own  science.  The 
materialist  faith  is  in  the  melting  pot.  It  only  needs  a  great 
war  to  complete  the  work,  to  bring  the  newer  realisation.  God 
is  getting  impatient." 

Who  was  it  that  had  said  that  before?  And  then  it  came 
to  him.  Father  Con,  the  day  they  had  walked  to  the  Abbey 
chapel  in  Dunhallow.  All  sorts  of  people,  in  themselves  so 
different,  were  saying  the  same  thing,  thinking  the  same  thing, 
more  and  more  throughout  the  world. 

As  they  spoke,  a  victoria,  in  which  Asthar  and  his  half- 
sister  were  seated  behind  a  pair  of  splendid  blacks,  swung  past. 
He  looked  like  a  Prince  of  Assyria,  with  that  deep  eye  groove 
set  behind  the  straight  monumental  nose.  But  Deirdre,  who 
looked  fleetingly  at  Finn,  challengingly  he  might  have  thought 
only  that  he  knew  she  could  never  concern  herself  with  so  un- 
important a  person  as  himself,  passed  like  a  ray  of  light  along 
the  greyness  of  the  Street  of  Words.  The  gleam  of  her  dusky 
hair  shining  above  her  green  dress,  framing  her  face  of  Eve, 
seemed  to  stream  the  turgid  air  with  colour.  Asthar  bowed 
to  him  delightedly. 

"You  are  coming  on  Friday?"  he  shouted  unconventionally 
across  the  traffic. 

Finn  blushed.    He  had  been  looking  at  Deirdre. 


XIII 

EAST  AND  WEST 

JOHN  L.  CRUX  had  a  sect  all  to  himself.  He  financed  it  and 
therefore  he  owned  it. 

The  Primitive  Christians  Free  Connexion,  known  through- 
out America  as  the  Primitive  Christians,  was  entirely  up  to 
date.  That  is  to  say,  it  stood  for  the  new  confraternity  of 
Religion  and  Big  Business.  It  had  a  church  in  the  Fifth 
Avenue,  New  York,  of  a  spiritual  and  physical  simplicity,  in- 
credible. Its  pews  as  its  pulpit  were  of  stark  oak,  but  they 
were  fitted  in  a  sumptuous  directness.  There  was  no  ornamen- 
tation, but  in  each  pew  was  a  discreet  "buzzer"  to  call  its  in- 
habitant to  the  affairs  of  this  world  from  the  affairs  of  the 
next.  The  private  autos  of  its  millionaires  were  round  the 
corner. 

The  scoffers  called  it  the  Church  of  the  Almighty  Dollar. 
They  did  it  injustice.  It  was  also  the  church  of  faith — of  a 
new  faith.  The  faith  in  success  and  in  its  God.  "Look  how 
it  succeeds,"  Crux  had  said.  "Any  of  our  Sunday  morning  con- 
gregations stand  for  anything  up  to  three  or  four  hundred 
millions." 

In  this  church,  the  minister  of  God  was  the  Reverend 
Elias  Z.  Slick,  author  of  that  highly  successful  book:  "Christ, 
the  Business  Man."  He  was  also  the  minister  of  John  L. 
Crux.  He  was  a  big-framed,  commanding  man  with  a  shear- 
ing nose,  calculating  eyes  with  swords  in  them,  and  a  mouth, 
clean-shaven  and  powerfully  acquisitive,  the  edge  of  his  per- 
sonality being  softened  or  hardened,  just  as  you  chose  to  look 
at  it,  by  the  frame  of  grey  beard  that  ran  round  his  face  un- 
der the  chin. 

He  had  originally  owned  and  run  a  successful  ring  of  Penny 
Bazaars  in  a  group  of  villages  up-State  in  New  York,  but  had 
had  a  "call."  He  had  had  several  "calls,"  each  one,  fortunately, 

133 


134  GODS 

financially  better  than  the  last.  But  the  call  to  the  church 
on  Fifth  Avenue  was  the  best  of  all. 

It  was  not  that  the  Reverend  Elias  was  not  genuine.  He 
was  genuine,  with  a  capacity  for  self-conviction  almost  amount- 
ing to  sincerity.  It  was  the  secret  of  his  influence,  and  there 
are  very  few  Machiavellis  in  the  world.  The  Reverend  Elias 
was  not  one  of  them. 

Crux  had  established  a  sort  of  Primitive  Christian  branch 
in  Limehouse,  London,  with  plenty  of  loaves  and  fishes,  install- 
ing it  in  a  barrack  building  of  comfortable  red  brick.  Under 
the  trained  guidance  of  the  Reverend  Slick,  especially  loaned 
from  the  Fifth  Avenue,  it  had  been  a  success  from  the  be- 
ginning. It  had  an  excellent  cinema  theatre  attached,  a  soup 
kitchen  of  a  superior  brand,  and  every  modern  convenience, 
including  what  one  may  term  a  Big  Business  heaven  and  a 
hell  reduced  to  the  irreducible  minimum.  The  Limehousers 
streamed  to  the  hand  that  fed.  A  big  white  hand  that  gave  un- 
grudging. 

It  was  his  Limehouse  experiment  that  Mr.  Crux  intended 
grafting  on  Black  Rock. 

In  his  dour  way,  he  was  delighted  with  the  Black  Rock  pos- 
sibilities as  outlined  by  Finn,  and  to  his  son  Parker  he  talked 
about  "exploitation"  more  than  ever.  With  that  flashing  in- 
tuitive way  of  the  really  great  business  man,  for  intuition  plays 
a  greater  part  than  calculation  in  the  massing  of  millions,  he 
rough-sketched  his  plan,  which  was  simple  as  the  establishment 
in  the  Avenue. 

It  included  a  patent  church;  the  Reverend  Slick,  and  a  ple- 
thora of  loaves  and  fishes.  "Religion  makes  'em  easy  to  man- 
age," he  said,  the  Rontgen  eye  looking  through  his  son  into  the 
mists  of  Ireland.  "And  besides,  it's  good  for  'em."  But  there 
were  no  mists  for  John  L.  Crux.  He  was  not  misty. 

It  was  not  that  Crux  was  only  anxious  to  make  money. 
Money  to  the  man  of  millions  is  meaningless.  It  is  the  ad- 
venture of  it  that  pulls,  but  with  that  shrewd  conservation 
of  energy  that  makes  the  organiser  of  money  what  he  is,  he 
thought  of  killing  two  birds  with  one  stone — one  for  the  Lord 
and  one  for  himself.  He  was  sincerely  anxious  to  convert  these 
"Papists"  from  complex  to  Primitive  Christianity.  He  was 
anxious  to  give  them  the  benefit  of  that  brand  of  Christianity 


EAST  AND  WEST  135 

which,  in  his  opinion,  had  been  that  held  by  its  Founder — 
with  all  modern  advantages  added. 

He  knew  as  the  man  of  power,  whether  king  or  priest,  has 
known  in  all  ages,  that  full  revelation  was  not  possible  to  the 
mob.  That  was  for  the  elect  such  as  himself,  his  son  and  those 
captains  of  industry  who  helped  to  form  the  congregation  of 
the  church  in  Fifth  Avenue.  Revelation  for  the  workers  had 
to  be  modified,  as  carefully  as  Thrum  modified  his  news  for 
that  congregation  of  his  which,  as  he  had  told  Finn,  extended 
through  the  world.  Not  only  was  Crux  a  fervent  believer  in 
hell-fire,  but  he  subscribed  to  hell-fire  organisations  like  that  of 
General  Bliss  because  he  sincerely  believed  uthe  fear  of  God" 
necessary  to  obedience.  Had  a  literal,  concrete  hell  been  avail- 
able, he  would  have  put  the  anarchist  or  socialist  into  its  flames 
with  as  little  compunction  and  with  as  entire  conviction  as  his 
private  gunmen  had  shot  down  the  mob  at  his  Arizona  Belle 
Copper  mine,  when  they  had  tried  to  wreck  the  plant. 

Finn,  who  had  heard  something  of  the  new  project,  was 
thinking  on  some  of  these  things,  which  came  to  him  shadowy 
enough  in  his  newer  realisation  of  his  employer,  on  his  way 
to  "The  Cloisters."  The  genuineness  of  this  man,  combined 
with  the  strange  difference  between  what  he  said  and  what  he 
did,  puzzled  him  as  much  as  the  same  thing  in  Thrum  and  so 
many  others.  But  out  of  the  cauldron  of  thought  the  picture 
of  that  ruined  chapel  of  grey  stone  up  there  on  Carrickmore 
looking  out  over  the  seas  always  resurrected  itself;  and  then 
the  picture  of  the  Limehouse  church,  which  he  had  seen,  and 
its  pastor.  "Upon  this  rock  shall  I  build  my  church,  and 
the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it."  That  utterance 
of  Father  Con  kept  recurring  like  the  beat  of  a  hammer.  But 
the  Primitive  Christians  were  not  the  gates  of  hell. 

These  thoughts  soon  passed  into  other  and  more  concrete 
considerations.  Or  rather,  one  other.  His  clothes.  He  was 
going  to  dinner  in  a  morning  coat  of  doubtful  cut,  into  which 
his  father  and  mother  had  forced  him  some  six  months  before, 
"because  tails  look  respectable."  He  had  no  dress  clothes. 
He  blushed  and  sweated  alternately. 

Finn  Fontaine  was  not  the  Finn  of  even  three  months  be- 
fore. He  was  a  much  less  concrete  Finn,  a  Finn  whose  soul 
and  even  whose  body  was  in  a  state  of  disintegration,  leav- 
ing him  with  a  feeling  of  helplessness.  Perhaps  the  comment, 


136  GODS 

as  he  passed  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  of  the  megatheric  po- 
liceman on  duty  at  the  entrance  to  the  House  of  Commons  ex- 
pressed him  as  well  as  anything  else:  "A  queer  looking  cus- 
tomer as  ever  I  did  see.  Looks  as  though  he  had  escaped  from 
a  caravan  and  didn't  know  what  to  do  with  himself." 

He  was  a  queer  customer,  ungainly,  huge,  with  an  in- 
describable look  of  being  too  big  or  was  it  too  craggy,  for  his 
environment?  The  pile  of  the  parliament  houses  did  not  over- 
whelm— it  threw  him  into  relief  as  age  throws  youth. 

The  door  was  opened  by  Togo,  to  bring  to  him  the  gold 
and  ivory  of  one  of  Chopin's  nocturnes  that  whispered  from 
under  the  closed  door  on  his  left  like  the  crepitation  of  the 
leaves  in  a  church  yard,  gusted  hither  and  thither  by  the 
autumn  wind.  The  notes  passed  from  a  whisper  to  a  ripple, 
rose  into  the  glug-glug  of  nightingales  to  fill  the  house  with 
melody,  and  then  ceased.  A  blue-grey  ghost  fled  up  the  stairs 
before  him  like  a  cloud.  It  was  a  great  cat. 

As  the  door  closed  behind  him,  Big  Ben  chimed  the  three 
quarters.  He  was  too  early. 

But  Paris  Asthar  received  him  between  the  high  panellings 
oi  oak  under  the  low  ceiling  as  though  he  had  been  a  prince — 
and  Paris  another,  with  that  exquisite  courtesy,  the  sincerity 
cf  which  lifted  it  above  the  shallowness  of  tact.  Finn  was 
the  first  to  arrive. 

As  the  others  began  to  come,  Asthar  led  him  over  to  a  cor- 
ner where  he  placed  in  his  hands  a  copy  of  Dante's  "Inferno," 
adorned  by  a  series  of  drawings  by  Albrecht  Dlirer.  Finn, 
grateful  for  the  relief  of  the  book  and  the  corner,  found  the 
illustrations  so  interesting  that  he  almost  forgot  the  others 
until  he  heard  the  high  silver  voice  of  Asthar  introducing  a 
lank,  rank,  young  curate,  of  monkish  aspect,  whom  he  called 
"my  friend  John  Durring." 

The  young  clergyman  was  very  earnest  in  a  jerky  way  with 
galvanic  movements  of  the  shoulders  and  clenchings  of  the  big 
red-grained  hands,  and  very  depressed.  Before  ten  minutes 
had  passed,  Finn  had  heard  that  he  was  a  Socialist  High 
Churchman  suffering  under  the  low  church  unimagining  of  the 
Bishop  of  Whitechapel,  the  man  who  had  once  confirmed  Finn 
in  the  Forestford  Church,  who,  as  the  Reverend  John  Durring, 
speaking  of  the  revolutionary  social  reform  currents  within 
the  church,  complained,  could  not  see  what  the  devil  these 


EAST  AND  WEST  13? 

things  were  for.  For  his  part  he,  with  other  members  of  the 
Church  Socialist  Union,  wished  to  bring  back  the  communism 
of  the  Early  Church  and  abolish  the  principle  of  private  prop- 
erty, and  generally  seemed  to  picture  a  world  of  High  Church 
broadclothed  workingmen  and  corduroyed  dukes  filling  the 
churches. 

As  he  spoke  the  apple  in  his  throat  moved  up  and  down 
like  a  shuttle.  His  voice  was  hoarse  from  much  street  speak- 
ing— one  of  his  differences  with  the  Bishop.  Jock  Mac- 
Adam,  whose  agitation  for  the  unemployed  had  been  filling 
the  papers,  he  seemed  to  regard  as  a  sort  of  second  Christ. 
"You  know,  my  dear  Fontaine,"  he  had  dropped  the  "Mr." 
from  the  first  go-off,  "the  mistake  we  Christians  make  is  think- 
ing there  is  only  one  saviour  of  mankind.  Saviours  are  always 
coming,  though,  of  course,  only  one  was  God.  MacAdam  is 
one  of  them.  Some  day  we  shall  have  woman-Christs,  Mac- 
Adam,  says,  but  I  don't  go  so  far  as  that;  and  Jock  is  not 
even  a  professing  Christian." 

He  was  moistly  earnest,  being  very  sweaty  and  a  little  in- 
clined to  spit  in  his  more  enthusiastic  periods,  but  he  could 
no  more  resist  Paris  Asthar  than  anyone  else,  and  he  con- 
fided in  Finn  that  he  had  a  passion  "to  save  his  soul."  "He 
worships  the  Devil,'  he  had  said  to  Finn  in  an  earnest  and 
slightly  ridiculous  way,  and  went  on  to  say  that  he  knew  a  man, 
a  clergyman,  to  whom  Asthar  had  shown  a  little  chapel  in 
"The  Cloisters,"  complete  with  altar,  in  which  everything, 
including  the  chalice,  had  been  stolen  from  Christian  churches. 

He  had  become  almost  violently  moist  as  he  recounted  this 
story,  of  which  Finn  could  make  neither  head  nor  tail,  except 
that  he  gathered  that  Asthar  worshipped  the  Devil  because  he 
worshipped  power. 

Finally,  he  had  got  back  to  his  other  hero,  MacAdam, 
and  got  Finn's  promise  to  take  part  in  a  procession  of  the  un- 
employed from  Tower  Hill  to  the  West  End  in  January,  which 
he  was  to  help  to  lead.  He  had  been  angry  with  Asthar,  who 
had  complained  that  he  would  be  compelled  to  give  up  his  and 
Deirdre's  favourite  drive  along  the  Embankment  "because 
those  unemployed  fellows  have  started  using  it  for  their  prome- 
nades." To  anything  that  his  host  said  or  did,  he  seemed 
to  attach  extraordinary  importance,  and  this  remark  of  his 
seemed  to  depress  him  unduly. 


138  GODS 

Finn  came  out  of  the  word  storm  of  the  young  curate  to 
find  a  girl  who  was  sitting  in  a  low  chair  in  one  corner  of  the 
room,  under  the  stem  of  a  high  seven-branched  candelabra, 
watching  him  from  under  her  dark  lashes.  She  was  an  un- 
usual looking  girl  with  a  high  unevenness  of  shoulder  and 
of  a  whip-like  slenderness,  or  it  might  have  been  some- 
thing twisted  in  a  graceful  perverse  way.  But  what  stamped 
itself  upon  the  retina  of  his  mind  were  the  grey  eyes  with  the 
tiny  pin-points  of  black  iris  that  stared  at  him,  and  the  nostrils, 
proportioned,  but  hungry  and  spreading.  The  tempered  light 
fell  upon  her  masses  of  hair  of  a  polished  copper,  done  low 
upon  a  skin  of  a  whiteness  that  made  his  pulses  beat,  whilst, 
as  he  looked,  a  black  shape  flashed  across  the  green  silk  of  her 
dress.  It  was  Beelzebub,  the  black  cat,  who  from  some  un- 
seen coign  of  vantage,  had  sprung  to  the  floor. 

On  turning  his  eyes  away  in  confusion,  he  discovered  that 
the  room  was  full  of  people  who  had  knotted  themselves  to- 
gether in  corners,  or  formed  around  some  nucleus  of  interest. 

Paris  Asthar,  with  the  contrariness  that  distinguished  him, 
liked  bringing  together  men  and  women  of  the  most  diversified 
types,  which  had  resulted  more  than  once  in  something  like  a 
free  fight.  It  was  his  own  habit,  as  he  said,  "to  keep  the  ball 
rolling"  by  passing  from  group  to  group,  withdrawing  himself 
at  intervals  to  watch  the  results  from  some  point  whence  he 
would  smile  that  queer,  haunting  smile  of  which  his  crony, 
Spearbohn,  the  caricaturist,  had  written  that  it  was  "the  smile 
of  a  damned  soul." 

This  evening  he  had  collected  one  or  two  men  of  science,  in- 
cluding Professor  Dust  and  Sir  Lancaster  Hogge,  who,  as  sci- 
entific enemies,  he  always  brought  together  whenever  possible. 
They  were  now  at  it  hammer  and  tongs  at  the  end  of  the  room 
near  the  high  sacramental  candelabra.  The  strident  laugh  of 
Sir  Lancaster,  "an  infidel  laugh,"  as  John  Durring  had  con- 
fided to  Finn,  had  many  times  come  to  the  ear  of  the  boy 
during  the  evening,  raising  itself  above  the  riot  of  words.  The 
white  teeth  of  Ali  Baba  gleamed  in  the  dark  corners  and  caught 
the  reflection  of  the  irregular  groups  of  wax  candles  with  which 
the  place  was  lighted.  There  were  some  political  nonentities, 
looking  highly  uncomfortable,  who  were  really  quite  important 
personages  in  their  constituencies.  And  there  were  some  of 


EAST  AND  WEST  139 

the  feminine  young  men  and  masculine  young  women  from  the 
Esoteric. 

Professor  Dust,  who  had  broken  himself  free  from  the 
strident  Hogge,  was  in  one  corner  saying  to  a  group  of  these 
last,  who  viewed  him  with  the  slightly  raised  eyebrows  of  an 
amused  scepticism,  in  emphatic  shocked  solemnity,  something 
about  ghosts,  repeating  the  word  with  slightly  staring  eyes: 
"Ghosts,  ghosts  .  .  ."  and  then,  fainter,  Finn  thought  he 
heard  something  about  "trematodes." 

But  one  figure  there  stood  out  from  all  others,  and  yet  he 
had  not  seen  the  man  until  his  eyes  by  chance  had  looked 
towards  Asthar,  who  stood  near  him.  It  was  that  of  a  turbaned 
Indian  of  a  skin  that  might  have  been  that  of  a  sun-tanned 
European,  and  a  height  that  towered  over  all  others  there  save 
Paris  Asthar  himself.  He  had  the  face  of  a  child  with  its 
firm,  rather  full,  lips  and  rounded  cheeks.  The  eyes  were  lan- 
guorous, not  lacking,  however,  in  a  certain  kind  of  intellectual 
vigour. 

The  shoulders,  veiled  by  his  white  robe,  were  broad  but 
sloping  in  the  way  that  often  conceals  in  boxers  a  cat-like  ac- 
tivity combined  with  great  strength,  something  that  seemed  to 
balance  the  spiritual  quality  in  the  man.  Not  that  his  figure 
was  muscular.  It  was  round,  but  in  a  firm,  soft  way.  His 
face  had  the  child-like  smile  of  a  Buddha  that,  knowing  all, 
was  tolerant  of  all. 

To  Finn  these  two  men,  standing  there  together  under  the 
low  ceilings  of  "The  Cloisters,"  looked  two  monumental  figures 
dwarfing  all  else.  But  they  were  two  figures  antagonistic.  Finn 
felt  that  instinctively,  just  as  he  felt  that  despite  the  same 
fatherland,  Sri  Kapila,  as  he  learnt  the  name  of  the  Indian,  and 
Ali  Baba,  who  through  the  evening  alternately  cringed  and 
snarled  to  the  other,  had  nothing  in  common  save  colour. 

Finn  was  looking  at  this  variegated  movement  of  a  new 
world,  when  Togo  announced  dinner.  The  guests  began  to 
move  towards  the  swing  doors  leading  into  the  adjoining 
room,  which,  with  the  heavy  curtain  that  veiled  them,  had  been 
thrown  back  to  show  a  table  of  exquisite  napery  and  glass  and 
silver  adorned  only  by  some  dead  white  roses.  The  boy, 
abashed,  and  wondering  whether  he  ought  to  offer  his  arm  as 
he  had  seen  the  others,  felt  a  little  touch  on  his  sleeve  and 
found  himself  looking  down  upon  the  girl  with  the  shining 


140  GODS 

hair  whom  he  had  seen  looking  at  him  from  under  the  can- 
delabra. 

"You  are  Mr.  Fontaine,  are  you  not?"  she  said  in  her 
soft,  purring  way.  Finn  admitted  it. 

"Paris  says  you  are  to  take  me  in  to  dinner.  I  am  Stella 
Fay."  She  paused  with  a  little  malicious  smile  as  she  saw  the 
boy's  confusion.  "You  are  not  afraid  of  me,  are  you?"  she 
said,  showing  two  rows  of  little  white  teeth.  "I'm  not  going 
to  bite  you." 

Finn  was  not  so  sure.  Those  little  white  teeth  behind  the 
red  lips  looked  as  like  biting  as  anything  could.  He  mur- 
mured something. 

By  this  time  the  others  had  gone  in  to  dinner,  leaving  them 
alone  in  the  shadow  of  the  swing  door  where  it  was  thrown 
back. 

The  girl  all  at  once  looked  up  at  Finn,  came  face  to  face 
with  him,  and  said  solemnly,  her  eyes  serious:  "Little  boy, 
I'm  going  to  spoil  you."  And  as  she  said  it  she  stood  on  tip- 
toe, her  hands  behind  her  back  and  kissed  Finn  full  on  the 
lips. 

Finn,  by  all  his  precedents,  should  have  been  shocked.  He 
was  not.  The  warm  full  pressure  of  those  red  lips  made  every 
drop  of  blood  in  his  body  recede  to  his  heart,  which  con- 
tracted as  though  something  at  that  moment  had  entered  it, 
but  he  did  not  feel  shocked.  Nor  glad.  He  felt  overwhelmed, 
satiated,  curious.  For  no  lips  had  ever  pressed  his  save  the 
leathery  lips  of  his  aunts  and  mother  and  the  warmer  whis- 
kered lips  of  his  father. 

He  turned  to  find  Togo  as  though  he  had  that  moment  come 
up  a  trap  door,  his  face  expressionless,  waiting  to  close  the 
doors  behind  them.  Yet  it  seemed  to  Finn  that  behind  the 
mask  there  sat  a  grin. 

He  felt  the  light  touch  of  the  fingertips  on  his  arm,  was 
faintly  conscious  of  Asthar's  look  of  quizzing  enquiry  as  they 
took  their  places  at  the  table,  and  then  the  array  of  forks  and 
spoons  frightened  him  so  much  that  he  forgot  the  kiss  and 
the  girl  and  everything. 

He  came  out  of  his  preoccupation  to  find  the  dinner  and 
conversation  in  full  blast,  with  all  sorts  of  people  exchanging 
views  unconventionally  across  the  table.  It  came  to  him  after- 
wards, that  amazing  cross-fire  of  conversation  and  idea,  in 


EAST  AND  WEST  141 

which  Asthar,  as  was  often  bis  way,  was  silent,  listening.  The 
great  bulk  of  the  man,  in  it  something  of  authority,  sitting 
there  at  the  head  of  the  table,  one  hand  smoothly  curved 
about  the  stem  of  his  wineglass;  the  prominent  heavy  eye  set 
behind  the  sheer  of  the  nose,  the  curves  of  the  small,  rather 
sick  mouth,  all  impressed  themselves  upon  the  boy.  So,  it 
seemed  to  him,  must  men  have  sat  at  feasts  in  the  days  when 
Bel-shazzar  was  king. 

Following  a  chance  remark  of  Asthar,  this  extraordinary  con- 
versation had  begun  with  a  eulogy  from  Finn's  partner  of  the 
Universalists  and  Universalism  and  of  their  leader,  Ellen  Mas- 
ters, who,  with  her  followers,  had  claimed  to  pierce  the  worlds 
of  the  astral.  She  had  then  passed  on  in  what  might  have  been 
mere  flippancy  or  might  have  been  deadly  earnest  to  speak  of 
leaving  the  body  in  her  dreams  to  swim  in  astral  seas,  and 
declared  that  even  whilst  swimming  in  the  physical  body,  she 
was  able  to  leave  it  at  will  and  so,  by  resting  it,  to  accomplish 
the  extraordinary  feats  in  the  water  for  which  she  was  already 
famous.  (But  all  this  was  afterwards  much  confused  in  Finn's 
mind  and  was  only  a  sidelight  upon  this  amazing  dinner  party.) 

Stella  Fay  had  then  gone  on  to  expatiate  upon  what  she 
called  that  "Light  from  the  East,"  which  was  one  of  the  corner- 
stones of  the  new  faith,  a  faith  which  seemed  to  have  in  its  mo- 
saic a  fragment  of  every  religion  in  the  world,  but  which  seemed 
to  derive  its  main  inspiration  from  India,  through  it  running  a 
medley  of  Hinduism  and  Buddhism  with  other  Asiatic  religions. 

It  was  in  fact  an  attempt  to  unite  the  religions  of  the 
world  and  to  find  in  all  religions  from  the  beginning  of  time 
a  common  nucleus.  A  new  religion  in  Persia  had  already  begun 
to  do  this,  with  a  success  that  had  brought  millions  of  ad- 
herents throughout  the  world,  but  it  seemed  that,  great  though 
it  was,  it  fell  far  behind  Universalism  in  beauty  and  truth — 
two  words  which  were  constantly  on  Stella  Fay's  lips. 

Upon  all  this  she  discoursed,  enthusiastic  and  dogmatic,  al- 
though at  times  in  a  sort  of  brilliant  flippancy,  sometimes 
flashing  into  asides  that  made  Sir  Lancaster  Hogge  snort  and 
caused  Professor  Dust,  who  sat  only  a  couple  of  places  away, 
to  scratch  his  scalp  in  good-natured  puzzlement  and  to  peer 
around  his  partner  to  look  at  the  speaker  as  though  she  had 
been  mad.  All  this  to  her  exceeding  delight. 

She  finished  by  declaring  that  matter  had  no  existence  and 


142  GODS 

that  all  was  maya  or  illusion,  turning  eagerly  to  the  white- 
robed  Indian  for  corroboration. 

But  Sri  Kapila  was  elusive.  He  would  not  commit  himself 
and  suavely  turned  the  conversation  to  a  comparison  of  the 
science  of  the  East  and  West,  which  he  said  were  each  the 
converse  of  the  other,  the  West  in  the  realm  of  the  material 
and  the  East  in  that  of  the  spiritual,  which,  however,  were 
really  one  and  the  same  thing,  a  statement  that  brought  a  tri- 
umphant "I  told  you  so"  from  Stella  Fay.  There  was  only 
one  though  vital  difference  in  the  eastern  and  western  concepts 
— in  the  East,  science  and  religion  were  one  and  the  same 
thing — in  the  West  they  were  antagonistic. 

But  he  made  it  very  clear  in  that  soft  resonant  English  of 
his  that  the  East  had  passed  through  the  stage  of  materialis- 
tic science  and  had  in  fact  antedated  many  of  the  modern 
discoveries  not  only  in  biology  but  in  physics.  The  West  was 
engaged  with  the  infinitely  small  and  the  East  with  the  in- 
finitely great — the  first  investigating  the  molecule  and  en- 
deavouring to  split  the  atom,  the  latter  analysing  the  spirit  of 
which  matter  was  only  the  shadow — but  both  small  and  great 
were  the  infinite.  And  he  went  on  to  say  that  even  molecules 
were  made  up  of  atoms  and  atoms  of  electrons  and  electrons 
of  something  still  smaller,  but  each  of  these  infinitesimal  par- 
ticles of  matter  were  really  systems,  paralleling  the  solar  sys- 
tem, with  their  own  suns  and  planets;  and  that  what  we  called 
our  solar  system  was  but  an  electron  in  another  and  greater 
system,  and  that  in  its  turn  but  the  infinitesimal  part  of 
another. 

And  all  this,  despite  the  attempted  angry  incursions  from 
Dust  and  Hogge,  he  laid  down  so  quietly  and  so  assuredly 
that  it  ceased  to  be  dogma  and  became  merely  the  demon- 
stration of  a  master  to  a  pupil. 

Through  all  this,  Ali  Baba's  teeth  had  shone  derisively.  Finn 
could  not  get  away  from  those  teeth.  They  haunted  him.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  they  bared  themselves  in  a  sort  of  snarl. 
But  the  snarl  of  a  wild  beast  that  knows  its  master,  for  Ali 
Baba  only  smiled.  He  did  not  criticise. 

Once  and  only  once  the  atmosphere  became  charged  almost 
to  ignition.  It  was  after  Sir  Lancaster  Hogge  had  sneered 
about  the  Indian  caste  system,  which  he  said  in  words  not  too 
finely  chosen  was  degrading  and  prohibitive  of  all  intellectual 


EAST  AND  WEST  143 

advance  for  the  Indian,  of  whose  intellectual  capacity  and  pos- 
sibilities he  obviously  had  only  contempt. 

The  turbaned  Indian  inclined  his  head  in  grave  courtesy.  "I 
agree  with  you,  Sir  Lancaster,"  he  said,  "but  Indian  caste  is 
already  beginning  to  dissolve.  Before  the  twentieth  century 
is  out  we  shall  have  no  caste  in  India  as  it  is  understood  to-day. 
Even  now,  fraternisation  between  Mahomedan  and  Hindu  has 
begun." 

"That's  all  very  fine,"  sneered  Sir  Lancaster,  whom  the  In- 
dian's placidity  seemed  to  enrage,  "but  you  have  caste." 

"And  have  you  no  caste  system?"  Sri  Kapila  rejoined 
quietly.  "Have  you  none  here  in  Europe?  .  .  .  and  at 
Simla?"  he  added  after  a  moment.  "At  Simla,  where  there  is 
the  red  cord  of  the  vice-regal  receptions  which  only  the  vice- 
regal party  can  pass.  And  in  the  Indian  army  where  there  are 
the  castes  of  engineers,  of  artillery,  of  cavalry  and  of  infantry, 
as  carefully  graded  as  anything  that  India  has,  and  in  India 
generally  where  you  separate  the  wholesale  merchant  from  the 
retailer?"  A  silence  had  followed  his  words.  He  added  with 
a  soft  smile:  "And  yet  there  is  caste  and  always  will  be  caste, 
for  we  shall  always  have  spiritual  aristocracy." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Paris  Asthar,  without  seeming  to 
do  so,  and  by  comparing  the  artists  of  India  and  Europe, 
turned  the  conversation  to  art,  which,  he  said,  was  the  heart 
of  religion.  He  talked  of  art  as  the  saviour  of  the  world, 
when  John  Burring,  the  apple  in  his  throat  working  excitedly, 
interposed  to  foreshadow  a  time  when  the  art  of  the  future 
would  be  understood  of  all  men,  as  some  of  the  Russians  were 
teaching,  an  assertion  which  Asthar  had  combated  in  brilliant 
good  nature. 

"Art,  the  finest  art,  will  never  be  understood  by  the  mob," 
he  had  said  and  had  glided  into  a  scintillating  disquisition  of 
what  art  was.  "The  essence  of  art,"  he  said,  "is  that  it  is 
artificial.  The  mob  is  natural." 

It  was  here  that  Finn  made  his  first  and  last  intrusion  into 
the  discussion,  bursting  out  uncontrollably:  "Art  is  not  art — 
art  is  life,"  and  had  subsided  before  the  eyes  that  turned  on 
him.  As  he  said  it,  he  felt  the  silken  knee  of  his  partner  brush 
his  leg  slightly  under  the  table.  But  that  might  have  been 
accident.  She  looked  at  him,  glowing,  in  embarrassing  ap- 
proval. 


144  GODS 

It  was  after  they  got  back  into  the  drawing  room  where  the 
ladies  had  preceded  them,  his  senses  still  befogged  after  his 
experiences,  that  he  heard  a  voice,  a  dark,  vibrant  contralto, 
coming  from  the  corner  of  the  room.  At  the  sound,  his  heart 
stopped  beating,  and  then  he  saw  the  singer  seated  in  a  dis- 
tant corner,  with  a  great  lute  of  some  polished  wood  slung 
across  the  slender  shoulders  of  her'  evening  gown,  made  of  some 
fine  stuff  of  a  black  bronze,  the  lute  striking  fire  from 
the  hair  above.  The  eyes  that  looked  out  over  the  strings 
were  softly  glowing,  the  body  bending  forward  in  tender 
graciousness,  as  her  arms,  fine  and  rounded  and  bare  to  the 
shoulders  as  the  arms  of  young  athletes  seen  in  sunlight  are 
bare,  moved  slowly  across  the  strings  under  the  shaded  lights. 
She  was  singing  what  Finn  knew  afterwards  as  "The  Shadow 
Song:" 

Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  play 

Out  in  the  mists  of  yesterday. 
Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  fall 

Over  there  on  the  eastern  wall. 
Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  creep 

To  the  twilight  edge  of  to-morrow's  sleep. 
Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  fly 

Over  the  faint  of  the  western  sky. 

Come,  dear  heart,  on  the  shadows'  flight 

As  we  whisper  together  the  last  Good-night  .  .  . 

Finn,  looking  at  the  singer,  started  to  find  that  the  eyes, 
dark  and  glowing,  were  gazing  full  at  him  out  from  the  veil  of 
her  hair,  but  as  he  quickly  realised,  unseeing. 

As  the  song  came  to  an  end  in  the  shadows  of  a  room 
which,  the  wax  candles  dying  in  their  sockets,  was  lit  only  by 
the  gleam  of  the  logs  in  the  great  fireplace,  Finn,  the  spell 
broken,  turned  to  find  the  eyes  of  the  girl  with  the  copper  hair 
looking  at  Deirdre  Asthar,  now  silent,  where  she  sat  over  her 
lute,  with  something  of  smiling  hate  in  them,  and  beyond  her, 
Asthar,  looking  at  them  both.  And  then  they  had  turned 
to  Finn,  eager,  hungry,  but  with  something  of  anger  in  them, 
and,  as  he  met  them,  he  felt  the  vague  sense  of  irritation  with 
Deirdre  Asthar  he  had  felt  that  day  at  the  office  of  "The 
Earth,"  and  his  pulses  once  more  flamed  to  the  kiss  which  still 
haunted  his  lips. 

He  went  away  under  the  black  starry  firmament  with  this 


EAST  AND  WEST  145 

irritation  stirring  in  him  like  some  poison,  with,  underneath, 
something  still  deeper  trying  to  make  itself  felt.  Out  of  the 
doorway  behind  there  came  Hogge's  strident  laugh.  He  saw 
the  Indian  standing  under  the  shadow  of  the  Lords  looking 
up  into  the  night  skies.  He  wondered  of  what  he  was  thinking. 
And  then  the  night  swallowed  him  up. 

And  over  all  space  and  the  cold  stars  with  something  of  in- 
cense, that  as  he  looked,  seemed  to  climb  upwards  to  the 
depths  of  black  and  gold  above. 


XIV 

THE  HUNGER  LINE 

It  was  a  ragged-looking  nebula  that  formed  and  unformed, 
now  turning  in  upon  itself,  now  scattering  sluggishly  inside  the 
gates  of  the  Marble  Arch  this  afternoon  of  high  sun,  veiled 
but  imminent  behind  the  January  haze.  There  was  something 
about  this  grey  mass,  formless,  purposeless,  which  to  Finn, 
standing  near  the  gates,  seemed  to  inhibit  organisation  of  any 
kind.  That  this  incoherency  should  become  processionally  co- 
herent seemed  nonsense. 

A  pair  of  dejected,  broken-mouthed  men,  with  a  growth 
upon  their  leaden  faces  like  a  grey  fungus  and  jaws  that 
drooped  towards  shirtless  breasts,  looked  at  the  bandoliers 
that  slipped  from  their  thin  shoulders  and  which  were  to  sup- 
port the  staffs  of  the  calico  banner  with  the  black  lettering: 

WORK— NOT  CHARITY! 

as  though  they  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  them.  About 
them,  the  ground  was  moist  with  their  thin  expectorations,  the 
last  emphasis  of  their  manhood.  A  few  yards  away,  a  man 
in  a  broken  bowler  and  a  braided  frock  coat  made  for  an 
aristocrat  of  more  comfortable  habit,  his  hands  deep  in  his 
trousers  pockets,  expectorated  nonchalantly  upon  the  frayed 
trousers  of  the  man  before  him  and  looked  upon  the  result, 
emitting  the  brown  stream  once  more  through  the  fringes  of 
the  ragged  moustache  at  the  same  target  and  hitting  it  with 
the  accuracy  born  of  practice.  He  regarded  his  work  with  a 
certain  sodden  satisfaction,  whilst  a  few  paces  beyond,  a  little 
man  in  the  frock  coat  which  in  that  crowd  seemed  the  very 
vestment  of  unemployment,  with  the  face  of  a  rabbit,  browsed 
between  the  legs  of  his  fellows  for  cigarette  ends.  Finn  caught 
the  glutinous  satisfaction  upon  the  outline  of  his  muzzle  as  he 

146 


THE  HUNGER  LINE  147 

popped  the  stump  of  a  cigar  into  his  mouth  and  began  to  chew 
with  a  nibbling  movement. 

But  Finn  noticed  one  thing.  Unemployment  seemed  a  male 
property.  There  was  no  woman  in  the  crowd. 

Here  a  man  in  a  sugarloaf  hat,  with  something  of  resistance 
to  things  still  remaining,  was  striking  one  thin  hand  into  the 
palm  of  the  other  as  he  declaimed  to  a  fungoid  group  of  down 
and  outs  who  regarded  him  in  hang-dog  doubt. 

"Guts,"  Finn  heard  him  say  with  a  kind  of  crack  at  the 
end  of  his  sentences,  ".  .  .  if  ye'd  the  guts  of  a  worm  ye'd 
do  'em  in.  Christ!  They've  got  their  wines  and  their  wimin, 
and  you — what  d'ye  call  yerselves?  .  .  ."  He  looked  up 
to  catch  the  clean  white  eye  of  a  policeman  and  tailed  off 
.  .  .  "wot  d'ye  call  yerselves  .  .  .  ?"  and  then,  ineffective,  al- 
most in  a  whisper — "well,  wot  do  ye  call  yerselves?"  Then  he 
was  silent. 

A  few  minutes  before  and  it  had  looked  to  Finn  as  though 
all  the  scarecrows  there  could  have  been  stuck  in  a  cabbage 
patch.  Men  had  only  trickled  into  the  park  in  twos  and 
threes,  and  even  this  trickle  had  now  been  stopped  by  a  cor- 
don of  police  across  the  entrance,  yet  the  groups,  breaking 
and  forming  again,  now  appeared  to  take  a  certain  consistency 
as  they  fermented  together.  Each  group  seemed  to  ferment 
around  some  particular  head,  which  would  bob  up  and  go  down 
again  like  a  blob  of  yeast  in  a  stewpan.  It  was  a  frowsy,  lousy 
scum  of  grey-faced  grey-lipped  men  upon  whose  skins  the 
slime  of  hunger  traced  itself  as  though  snails  had  crawled  there. 

The  Reverend  John  Burring,  hoarse,  the  apple  in  his  throat 
moving  excitedly  in  profile  from  where  Finn  stood,  bobbed  up 
and  down  as  he  moved  from  group  to  group  urging  them  vainly 
to  form  up  behind  the  men  with  the  calico  banner,  who,  with 
a  little  bunch  of  leaders,  stood  forlornly  near  the  gates  with 
the  banner  in  position. 

This  little  group  of  leaders  was  headed  by  a  tall  man,  swell- 
ing-chested, who  stood  there  on  his  long  aristocratically  thin 
legs,  holding  his  soft  deerstalker  in  his  hand  whilst  he  wiped 
his  forehead  with  a  red  bandana  handkerchief.  His  masses  of 
hair,  parting  themselves  with  difficulty  at  the  side,  fell  over 
his  face.  After  he  had  put  his  hat  back  on  his  head,  he  stood 
with  his  hands  stuck  in  the  pockets  of  his  short  jacket,  thumbs 
outside,  a  silk  tartan  bow  drooping  from  under  his  beard  as 


148  GODS 

he  lifted  it  up  with  one  hand  and  held  it  pointing  pugnaciously 
at  the  sky.  His  mouth  look  as  though  a  cutty  stuck  there — 
but  there  was  no  cutty. 

By  his  side  stood  a  big  man  with  forked  red  Viking  beard, 
who,  as  John  Durring's  efforts  to  get  the  mass  of  men  into 
position  failed,  all  at  once  sprang  into  violent  motion,  running 
from  group  to  group,  shouldering  some  here  and  pushing  others 
there.  As  his  efforts  proved  as  vain  as  those  of  the  young 
clergyman,  his  face  became  purple,  his  forked  beard  standing 
out  defiant,  whilst  he  tried  to  make  his  voice  heard  over  the 
rising  din,  for  the  crowd  had  begun  to  cheer  aimlessly  whilst 
all  talked  together.  The  big  man  stood  there  like  a  baited  bull, 
the  great  mouth  opening  itself  in  bellowings  that  went  unheard 
in  that  silly  meaningless  commotion  where  all  talked  and 
cheered  together.  One  could  only  see  the  maw  opening  and 
shutting  and  the  red  of  the  gums.  His  arms  were  moving,  his 
face  distorted. 

It  was  John  Burring,  stopping  a  moment,  who  told  him  that 
these  two  men  were  Jock  MacAdam  and  Broadribb,  "Red 
Borb." 

So  that  was  Broadribb,  "Red  Borb,"  as  his  name  had  be- 
come corrupted  to  that  of  love  or  hate — Red  Borb,  the  anti- 
Christ,  as  his  father  always  called  him.  Like  thousands  of 
other  children,  he  had  been  brought  up  to  regard  this  apostle 
of  Karl  Marx,  the  German  Socialist,  as  a  sort  of  red  devil  who 
only  awaited  the  right  moment  to  wade  knee-deep  in  the  blood 
of  society,  with  Jock  MacAdam  as  his  satellite.  He  looked 
lurid  enough,  anyhow.  But  MacAdam,  somehow  he  was  dif- 
ferent. People  said  he  believed  in  Christ,  or  anyhow  in  Chris- 
tianity. 

Now  he  was  standing  there  on  his  high  clean  legs  with  his 
hands  set  deep  in  his  cross  pockets,  brooding  over  the  mass 
as  a  watchful  hen  over  her  chickens.  The  broken  circling  had 
now  begun  to  change  under  the  efforts  of  Red  Borb  into  some- 
thing like  a  forward  movement  towards  the  gates  of  the  park. 
As,  indolent,  the  masses  took  form,  here  and  there  at  their 
side  one  of  the  big,  cleanly  shaven  policemen  showed  himself, 
whilst  a  man  upon  a  powerful  black  horse,  who  seemed  to  have 
come  out  of  the  earth,  a  sleek,  dark-bearded  man,  directed 
operations  with  a  certain  official  immobility.  A  polished  scab- 
bard at  his  side  shone  against  the  jet  of  his  knee-boots.  As 


THE  HUNGER  LINE  149 

his  riding  lash  dropped  from  his  hand,  Finn  saw  two  or  three 
of  the  broken  looking  men  near  him  hurry  officiously  forward 
to  pick  it  up  and  return  it  to  the  owner,  who  thanked  them 
by  a  good-natured  indulgent  laugh. 

The  head  of  the  procession,  silent,  moved  out  between  the 
gates,  behind  it  the  masses  of  unemployed  shuffled  after  upon 
their  broken  boots.  Finn,  from  his  place  at  the  head,  by  the 
side  of  Durring,  sweating  and  enthusiastic,  could  hear  that 
cretaceous  shuffle  behind  him,  as  a  march  of  dead  men.  Not 
a  sound  came  from  the  grey  line.  As  they  moved  out  of  the 
gates,  three  mounted  policemen  showed  themselves  at  the  head. 
The  smooth  necks,  set  upon  the  broad  shoulders,  the  whole 
pillared  upon  the  bay  horses,  the  muscles  of  which  came  and 
went  under  the  skins  of  satin,  looked  part  of  some  ordered 
resistless  force — coherency  dominating  the  inchoate. 

The  procession  was  originally  to  have  marched  from  Tower 
Hill  to  Trafalgar  Square,  but  the  head  of  the  London  police, 
who  was  a  Jew,  and  therefore  a  man  of  imagination,  had  sug- 
gested the  reverse  direction,  by  which  he  hoped  to  avoid  the 
adherents  of  the  larger  and  rougher  East-end  element.  He  had 
been  disappointed,  for  the  grey  faces  had  poured  out  from 
their  hiding  places  in  the  West-end,  faces  of  the  same  breed. 
The  order  for  the  demonstration  had  been  as  rigidly  laid  down 
as  though  it  were  for  the  passage  of  an  army.  Park  Lane, 
Piccadilly,  Regent  Street,  Northumberland  Avenue,  the  Em- 
bankment ...  If  Disorder  wished  to  demonstrate  it  could 
do  so,  but  only  within  the  channels  of  Order.  With  much  na- 
tive humour  the  young  minister  who  had  originally  won  his 
reputation  by  being  the  best-dressed  M.  P.  in  the  House,  had 
said  in  reply  to  questions  asked  about  the  procession:  "We 
don't  mind  demonstrations,  so  long  as  they  only  demon- 
strate." A  crowded  House  had  laughed  and  the  joke  had  pro- 
vided the  head  lines  for  one  of  the  dailies  the  next  morning. 

As  they  turned  out  of  the  Marble  Arch,  Finn  was  surprised 
to  find  the  space  outside  almost  impassable.  Every  thieves' 
kitchen  and  casual  ward  in  the  West-end  seemed  to  have 
emptied  their  contents  around  the  Arch.  Mounted  policemen 
were  backing  their  horses  good-humouredly  upon  the  toes  of  the 
crowd,  but  finding  resistance  from  people  who  themselves  were 
wedged  immoveable  by  the  masses  behind,  began  to  get  angry 
under  the  eye  of  the  bearded  man.  The  eye  had  a  quality 


ISO  GODS 

of  remoteness,  calmly  ignorant  of  the  excited  expostulations  ad- 
dressed to  it  by  the  crowd.  "Cawrn't  ye  see  guv'nor?  There's 
millions  of  'em,"  said  one  excited  little  man,  mouth  and  nose 
working.  It  was  the  rabbit  man  of  the  cigar  stump.  The  Rev- 
erend John  Durring  in  his  excitement  had  even  ventured  to  lay 
sacrilegious  hand  upon  the  heel  of  the  law,  which  responded 
by  a  detached  kick,  the  head  above  indifferent  and  moving  un- 
evenly over  the  crowd  under  the  application  of  the  spur.  Great 
motorbuses  reared  their  heads  like  wounded  mammoths  from 
over  a  mob  which,  swarming  them  for  refuge,  hung  like  clusters 
of  bees. 

The  man  on  the  horse  began  to  get  excited  as  a  whole  hour 
went  by  without  the  crowd  moving.  His  reputation  was  at 
stake.  A  great  church  procession  from  St.  Paul's  to  Westmin- 
ster via  the  Embankment  had  been  arranged  for  the  same  day 
and  had  been  timed  to  reach  the  Abbey  a  full  hour  before 
the  unemployed  could  get  to  the  river.  The  Police  Commis- 
sioner had  been  doubtful  about  permitting  the  two  processions 
on  the  same  day,  but  the  promise  to  the  unemployed  leaders 
had  been  given  some  months  before,  the  trade  unions  were  get- 
ting unpleasantly  touchy  about  promises,  and  the  church  pro- 
cession being  a  Procession  of  Humiliation  for  the  national  sins, 
could  only  be  held  upon  an  appropriate  Saint's  Day.  Even 
now  the  procession  was  so  late  in  starting  that  it  possibly 
meant  meeting  that  other  procession  upon  the  Embankment 
itself. 

Finn  felt  something  thrill  him  as  though  he  were  a  filament 
of  the  crowd  and  then  something  loosen  out  beyond  him  in 
a  pressure  that  was  becoming  unbearable.  And  then  that  mass, 
which  seemed  to  have  its  times  and  its  seasons,  obeying  its 
own  laws,  began  to  move,  and  soon  they  were  passing  the  blank 
fagades  of  Park  Lane.  The  homes  of  millionairdom  looked 
as  though  they  were  made  of  wedding  cake,  with  something 
about  them  cheap  and  sugary.  In  one  of  the  houses,  which  had 
a  sort  of  gallery  at  the  height  of  the  first  floor,  the  gilt  mirrors 
that  showed  themselves  seemed  a  cheap  yellow  mockery. 

The  crawling,  slouching  thing  behind  was  silent  enough.  It 
dragged  itself  past  the  white  faces  of  the  houses  dumb  and 
unseeing.  And  then  Finn  heard  a  single  word: 

"Guts."     And  then: 

"If  ye'd  guts    .     .     ."  and  then  a  soft  booing  like  the 


THE  HUNGER  LINE  151 

lowing  of  cattle.  The  voice  was  the  voice  of  the  man  in  the 
sugarloaf  hat,  in  that  mass  secure  of  his  anonymity.  But  the 
booing  had  something  ungenuine,  something  "made"  in  it. 

"Dussen't  show  theirselves,"  said  a  dilapidated  young  man 
near  Finn.  "Dussen't,"  and  then,  gaining  courage,  a  little 
higher,  "DUSSEN'T." 

An  arm  had  reached  into  the  crowd,  had  taken  the  scare- 
crow by  his  neck  between  a  pincers  of  thumb  and  forefinger, 
and  had  run  him  head  downwards  out  of  the  procession,  shak- 
ing him  as  a  dog  would  shake  a  rat,  the  man's  neck  bending 
in  on  itself  as  though  it  were  broken.  Nobody  protested. 

At  the  back  somebody  had  begun  to  sing:  "Come  where  the 
Booze  is  cheaper,"  the  song  of  the  moment,  in  a  high  cracked 
voice.  For  a  verse  he  sang  alone,  but  as  he  came  to  the  chorus : 

"Beer,  beer,  glorious  beer, 
Fill  yerself  right  up  to  'ere — duck-cluck. 
Up  with  the  sale  of  it, 
Down  with  a  pail  of  it, 
Glorious,  glorious  beer! 

the  whole  procession  joined  in.  "Glorious,  glorious  beer," 
made  the  high  facades  of  Piccadilly  ring  again,  that  curious 
cluck-cluck  demonstrative  of  satisfaction,  made  by  thousands 
of  tongues  buried  in  as  many  palates  and  then  forcibly  with- 
drawn, being  very  effective.  A  man  near  Finn  made  a  motion 
of  taking  up  a  bucket  to  his  lips  and  drinking.  But  it  had 
become  mixed  and  finally  tailed  off  under  the  sugary  sentiment 
of  "When  Little  Willie  Died  and  Went  to  Heaven,"  which  was 
sung  with  that  lachrymose  sweetness  beloved  of  the  English 
working  class: 

When  little  Willie  died  and  went  to  'eaven, 
The  hangels  came  a  flutterin'  rahnd  'is  bed. 

O'er  the  bed  they  spread  their  wings, 

As  wiv'  crowns  and  'arps  they  sings, 
When  little  Willie  died  and  went  to  'eaven. 

He  knew  it  was  trash,  but  the  sound  of  all  those  slouchers 
raising  their  voices  together  as  in  a  great  lamentation,  brought 
something  to  his  throat,  especially  when  the  rhythm  checked 
an  instant  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  line.  It  was  all  meaning- 
less, but  he  found  his  eyes  were  wet  with  tears. 


152  GODS 

As  they  marched,  each  corner  gave  its  quota  to  the  proces- 
sion. The  steam  of  the  dirty  bodies  came  to  him  in  a  sickly 
sweetness  of  crowded  rooms.  Somewhere  in  front  of  them  a  red 
banner  with  white  letters: 

"Christ  died  on  the  Cross — the  rich  live  on  it!" 

had  appeared,  flouting  all  the  rules  for  such  things  by  walking 
backwards.  Near  him,  two  men  began  to  argue  as  to  the 
meaning. 

"Gor  lumme!  cawrn't  ye  see  it?  On  the  crawss.  Get  that? 
Yer  know  wot  livin'  on  the  crawss  means."  And  the  other  voice 
serious,  expostulatory :  "But  they  don't  come  any  bloomin' 
jokes  over  us  ...  tell  yer,  mate,  it's  got  a  'idden  meanin' 
—that's  wot  it  'as." 

"This  is  a  great  day!"  said  Burring,  grinding  his  enormous 
red  hands  together  as  he  marched.  "They  must  listen.  Why, 
Melrose,  last  night  in  the  House  .  .  ." 

His  remark  was  lost  in  a  storm  of  groaning  that  went  up 
from  the  men  about  them.  Finn  saw  that  all  eyes  were  turned 
to  the  left,  eyes  that  lifted  themselves  weakly.  They  were 
passing  the  high  windows  of  the  Warwick  and  were  looking 
at  the  well-dressed  comfortable  clubmen  who  had  got  up  from 
their  afternoon  cups  of  tea  or  whiskies  and  sodas  to  look  down 
at  the  procession  as  at  a  spectacle. 

A  fist  rose  in  the  air  and  shook  weakly  against  those  high 
entrenchments.  Ragged  arms  were  lifted  thinly.  Two  ban- 
ners, both  of  them  Durring's  idea,  moved  round  menacingly  to 
face  the  windows;  one:  "I  asked  for  bread  and  ye  gave  me  a 
stone,"  and  the  other,  savagely  ironic:  "I  was  an  hungered 

.  .  and  ye  took  me  in.5'  A  storm  of  booing  went  through 
the  crowd,  but  the  men  in  the  windows  only  smiled.  Finn 
could  see  one  man,  he  was  a  young,  well-fed  man,  clean-shaven 
and  with  ruby  cheeks,  who,  his  newspaper  in  his  hand,  smiled 
down.  The  crowd,  always  searching  for  a  concrete  victim, 
fastened  on  this  one  man.  His  smile  seemed  to  drive  them 
mad.  But  to  Finn  it  seemed  that  the  faces  about  him  were 
aping  ferocity  rather  than  feeling  it.  It  was  as  though  they 
were  acting  a  part. 

"Go  in  and  pull  'im  aht  from  his  bloody  club!"  shouted  the 
man  in  the  sugar-loaf  hat  with  that  queer  crack  at  the  end 
of  his  voice. 


THE  HUNGER  LINE  153 

"That's  it.  Pull  'im  ahtl"  But  nobody  moved  from  the 
ranks. 

"Cut  the  guts  aht  of  'im!     Giv'  'im  wot  for.    Bloody  calf." 

But  nobody  moved.  Jock  Mac  Adam  stalked  forward  un- 
concernedly upon  his  long  legs,  the  bow  of  silk  plaid  flying 
from  under  the  iron-grey  beard  that  jutted,  pugnacious.  Only 
Burring  seemed  unduly  moved.  Finn,  feeling  his  grip  on  his 
arm,  was  astonished  to  find  his  face  white  and  shaking. 

"I  would  go  up  and  do  it,"  he  said  tremblingly.     "Those 

.     .     .     those  men  who  dishonour  our  common  Christianity. 

» 

But  now  they  had  moved  past,  the  groans  had  died  away, 
and  there  was  only  the  dragging  of  the  feet  over  the  streets, 
with  something  reptilian  in  it. 

Until  they  got  to  the  Embankment,  the  great  procession  re- 
mained in  its  brute  silence.  The  police  had  cleverly  cut  off 
the  false  head  of  the  procession  with  its  red  and  white  banner, 
forcing  it  down  a  by-street,  and  leaving  Finn  once  more  with 
a  clear  view. 

As  they  passed  on  to  the  Embankment  under  the  Charing 
Cross  bridge,  where  the  steamers  hooted  like  lost  souls  on  the 
slimy  tides,  Finn  was  surprised  to  see  another  procession  ad- 
vancing to  meet  them — perhaps  half  a  mile  away.  Seen  at 
that  distance,  it  looked  like  a  lot  of  women  with  smocks  of 
white  linen  drawn  over  their  petticoats,  a  scatter  of  gold  and 
crimson  waving  above.  In  front,  the  sun  glinted  upon  some- 
thing metallic. 

His  attention  was  diverted  by  a"  commotion  just  behind  him. 
He  turned  to  find  a  victoria  which  coming  from  the  direction 
of  Westminster  had  apparently  tried  to  drive  through  the 
crowd.  It  was  a  beautifully  turned  out  equipage,  drawn  by  a 
pair  of  black  horses  and  driven  by  a  coachman  with  a  foot- 
man by  his  side,  imperturbable,  his  arms  crossed. 

In  response  to  the  voice  of  some  unseen  occupant,  the  coach- 
man again  tried  to  drive  through  the  crowd,  which  from  silence 
had  risen  into  a  growl  of  anger.  Upon  the  coachman  hesitat- 
ing a  moment,  a  high  trumpet-like  voice  commanded:  "Drive 
on,  Richardson!"  Again  he  attempted  to  get  his  horses  through. 

In  a  moment  half  a  dozen  of  the  ragamuffins  had  sprung 
at  the  bridles  of  the  horses,  which,  rearing,  drove  the  car- 
riage back  a  few  yards.  As  they  did  so,  a  couple  of  police- 


154  GODS 

men  bore  down  on  them.  To  Finn  they  looked  like  so  many 
toothless  rats,  as  they  fell  back  snarling,  but  powerless. 

As  the  horses  turned  away,  he  saw  sitting  in  the  carriage  two 
figures — Asthar  and  his  sister.  The  former  smilingly  indif- 
ferent, the  latter  with  a  look  at  once  disgusted  and  contemptu- 
ous, with  something  in  it  of  ice  and  fire.  She  looked  at  Finn 
and  then  at  the  unemployed  behind  him,  and  the  head  turned 
away. 

In  that  moment  he  hated  the  girl  with  the  hair  of  bronze 
and  it  was  in  that  moment  he  felt  that  some  choice  had  to 
be  taken.  There  was  something,  vague,  passionate,  driving 
at  him  from  underneath  that  seemed  to  come  at  him  out  of 
the  masses  around  him. 

But  now  they  were  in  motion  again  and  they  could  see  the 
whites  of  the  eyes  of  the  men  at  the  head  of  the  other  pro- 
cession. 

It  was  then  that  Finn  saw  that  the  thing  upon  which  the 
sun  had  shone  was  a  great  brass  cross,  carried  at  the  head,  be- 
hind it  row  upon  row  of  clergymen,  all  in  full  canonicals.  The 
cross  reared  itself  under  the  sullen  fires  of  the  January  sun. 
Now,  at  the  head  of  the  unemployed,  a  red  rag  reared  itself 
crazily.  It  was  a  piece  of  red  flannel  hanging  from  a  clothes 
prop.  It  flaunted  itself  against  that  other  symbol,  nodding  at 
it  drunkenly.  But  the  cross  moved  on,  majestic,  assured. 

As  they  neared  one  another,  shepherded  by  the  police  to  one 
side  and  the  other,  the  black  and  white  procession  broke  into 
a  hymn,  led  by  a  brass  band  in  uniform  of  sober  black.  The 
voices  raised  themselves  there  upon  the  grey  embankment  in 
full-throated  assurance: 

Oh  God!  our  help  in  ages  past, 

Our  hope  in  years  to  come. 
Our  shelter  from  the  stormy  blast, 

And  our  eternal  home. 

with  an  unconsciousness  that  yet  had  something  of  immortality 
in  it. 

The  streams  were  passing  now.  The  serious,  well-paunched 
dignitaries  at  the  head,  in  mortarboards  and  cowls  of  black 
and  crimson,  behind  them  the  leaner,  younger  men,  all  march- 
ing in  a  step  that  had  in  it  the  spirit  of  order,  the  assured- 
ness that  comes  from  the  traditions  of  centuries.  Slouching  by 


THE  HUNGER  LINE  155 

them,  the  thin  grey  line  of  the  workless,  the  red  flag  jerking 
drunkenly  at  the  head. 

A  voice  had  started  "The  Red  Flag."  It  was  a  high-strained, 
jerky  voice  with  something  of  hysteria  in  it.  The  masses  be- 
hind had  joined  in  and  were  droning  it  with  the  same  sentimen- 
tality with  which  they  had  sung  "When  Little  Willie  Died  and 
Went  to  Heaven."  Only  now  there  was  something  of  chal- 
lenge in  it.  To  Finn,  it,  too,  sounded  like  a  hymn.  Looking 
up  at  the  line:  "The  banner  bright,  the  symbol  plain,"  he 
caught  sight  of  the  red  rag  borne  aloft  and  it  seemed  to  him 
that  that,  too,  was  a  symbol.  But  of  what? 

His  dreams  were  broken  by  a  raucous  bass  close  under  his 
ear  which  had  broken  the  following  silence,  singing  alone: 

What  is  this,  the  sound  and  rumour? 

What  is  this  that  all  men  hear? 

Like  the  wind  in  hollow  valleys  when  the  storm  is  drawing  near, 
Like  the  rolling  on  of  ocean  in  the  eventide  of  fear, 
Tis  the  people  marching  on. 

There  was  a  moment's  stillness,  and  then  in  low  thunder  like 
the  breaking  of  surf  upon  distant  beaches,  came  the  response 
from  the  ragged  host  behind,  first  from  one  or  two  and  then 
from  the  mass,  which  droned  the  tune  where  it  did  not  know 
the  words: 

Hark !   the  rolling  of  the  thunder ! 
Lo,  the  sun,  and  lo,  thereunder 
Riseth  wrath  and  hope  and  wonder 
And  the  host  comes  marching  on. 

And  then  the  thing  came  to  him  as  though  in  that  moment 
somebody  had  asked  him  the  question  out  there  from  the 
sullen  mists  through  which  the  sun,  now  low  in  the  sky,  showed 
itself,  a  fiery  red  ball.  Where  was  Christ — here  or  there? 

Here,  with  this  Disorder  of  workless,  sodden  wretches,  of 
wolfish  eyes  and  mouths — or  over  there,  behind  Order? 

Behind  the  Cross  or  the  Red  Flag? 

Where  was  he?    Where? 

The  thin  grey  line  dragged  itself  on  like  a  wounded  snake 
on  its  belly,  but  intent,  deadly,  untiring,  into  the  eye  of  the 
sullen  sun  as  though  some  distant  goal  were  there  behind  the 
lowering  mist. 


XV 

THE   HOUSE   OF   DREAMS 

When  Finn  had  stood  one  day  upon  an  iron  ledge  of  rock 
that  jutted  into  green  depths  at  the  foot  of  Carrickmore,  he 
had  seen  deep  below  him  something  white  and  silvery,  that, 
caught  in  the  undertows  which  haunted  those  troubled  waters, 
moved  aimless.  Then  a  dark  shape  had  swum  athwart  this 
thing  of  vague  whiteness,  which  at  once  became  instinct  with 
life,  and  this  shape  had  been  followed  by  others,  causing  it  to 
rush  from  side  to  side  and  gradually  to  get  smaller  until  it  had 
disappeared. 

To-day  he  felt  like  that  piece  of  bait  in  deep  waters.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  was  the  prey  of  unseen  forces,  or  if 
seen,  then  not  understandable.  His  father  and  mother;  Father 
Lestrange;  the  ash-covered  books;  Thrum;  the  grey  stone 
chapel  on  the  top  of  Carrickmore;  Paris  Asthar  .  .  .  and 
those  other  two  forces,  sinister,  unfathomable — the  girl  with 
the  copper  hair  and  Deirdre  Asthar.  Behind  all  this  had 
come  that  march  of  the  unemployed  together  with  the  vague 
shadow  of  something  the  world  was  calling  Democracy,  which 
seemed  to  hide  all  the  good  and  evil  of  the  world.  These 
shadowy  things  were  rushing  at  him,  dragging  him  from  side 
to  side,  and  would,  perhaps,  finally  engulf  him. 

He  would  not  be  engulfed. 

He  believed  in  a  sort  of  mad  conviction  that  he,  nervous, 
diffident,  was  the  equal  of  any  of  those  others  about  him.  Deep 
down,  especially  in  those  moments  of  exaltation  which  seemed 
to  spring  at  him  out  of  nothing,  he  believed  himself  their  su- 
perior. 

Nor  did  he  mean  equality  in  the  vulgar  sense.  Equality 
was  not  a  question  of  degree — equality  was  a  principle  that 
ran  through  life  holding  together  the  texture  of  its  stuff.  But 
although  he  did  not  admit  that  he  was  inferior  to  these  people 
about  him,  he  knew  that  men  were  not  equal.  Since  he  had 

156 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DREAMS  157 

met  Deirdre  Asthar,  he  had  begun  to  hate  aristocracy  and  all 
for  which  the  word  stood.  But  there  was  such  a  thing  as 
spiritual  aristocracy  and  always  would  be.  That  was  how  he 
measured  himself  with  those  others. 

Thrum  might  be  the  master  of  men's  lives,  but  his  kingdom 
was  of  this  world.  However  vague,  undefined,  he  began  to 
feel  that  his  kingdom  was  another  kingdom,  a  kingdom  that 
underlay  this  world  as  the  worlds  to  come — the  kingdom  of 
the  spirit.  His  poor  clothes  might  send  the  hot  blood  fleeting 
to  his  cheecks  when  he  had  to  see  Crux,  as  he  now  sometimes 
did,  but  Crux,  even  though  he  feared  him,  had  no  more  ulti- 
mate significance  than  a  dummy.  Parker  Crux  might  be  heir 
to  millions,  but  he  knew  that  only  a  hair-line  sometimes  pre- 
vented him  from  active  assault  in  the  middle  of  that  long  white 
face.  Father  Lestrange  ...  he  faltered.  He  was  dif- 
ferent. He  was  of  himself.  It  was  unexplainable,  but  he  knew 
it. 

Stella  Fay  ...  he  was  not  sure  of  her.  There  was 
that  kiss.  He  did  not  resent  it,  and  resentment  at  this  time 
seemed  to  him  the  essential  of  superiority.  There  had  also 
been  other  meetings,  the  memories  of  which,  even  though  they 
had  been  kissless,  made  him  flush  uncomfortably. 

It  was  not  that  he  had  made  love  to  Stella  Fay.  Finn  was 
incapable  of  "making"  love.  Nor  was  it  that  this  girl  with 
her  limp  and  grey  iris-pointed  eyes,  had  made  love  to  him,  but 
when  he  was  in  a  room  with  her,  despite  the  company  of  others, 
he  was  acutely,  painfully  conscious  of  her  physical  presence. 
Her  soft  low  laugh  would  come  to  him  over  all  others.  A  turn 
of  her  high  shoulder  and  he  would  know  it.  The  scent  of  her 
body  would  seep  to  him  through  all  other  scents. 

He  had  the  feeling  that  she  also  was  conscious  of  him,  that 
she  was  always  watching  him.  She  had  said  that  first  eve- 
ning at  "The  Cloisters"  as  she  kissed  him,  that  she  was  going 
to  spoil  him.  And  she  was  spoiling  him  in  a  silent  sort  of  way. 
Not  actively,  physically — and  yet  it  was  physical — but  emo- 
tionally. That  was  why  he  was  unsure  of  his  position  to  Stella 
Fay. 

And  Deirdre  ...  He  somehow  always  thought  of  these 
two  girls  together. 

He^had  no  doubt  about  her.  He  hated  her  and  her  class 
and  everything  for  which  she  stood.  He  had  been  taught  the 


158  GODS 

shame  of  a  man  striking  a  woman,  but  that  day  on  the  Em- 
bankment, he  would  have  struck  her  cold,  prideful  face  with- 
out remorse.  But  where  did  Asthar  stand  in  all  this? 

He  didn't.  Paris  Asthar  defied  placement.  He  was  out- 
side. Well,  it  didn't  matter  about  him,  and  he  liked  him. 

But  he,  Finn  Fontaine,  was  his  own  master,  although  he 
might  not  be  master  of  his  fate.  He  had  read  somewhere  a  line 
about  a  man  being  master  of  his  fate.  That  was  nonsense. 
No  man  was  master  of  his  fate,  for  no  man's  fate  could  be 
separated  from  that  of  any  other.  For  good  or  evil,  all  men 
and  women  were  bound  up  together.  But  that  thought  was 
intolerable.  It  meant  being  tied  up  with  all  those  others  as 
a  boy,  baiting  for  eels,  passes  a  needle  of  wool  through  a  hand- 
ful of  worms. 

This  was  the  circle  which  Finn  Fontaine  always  complete^. 
There  was  nothing  clear.  He  was  in  his  twentieth  year.  He 
felt  old.  He  had  no  philosophy  of  life.  Life  was  a  succession 
of  unrelated  incidents  and  people — a  stringing  together  of  peo- 
ple and  of  incoherencies.  He  did  not  understand  people  or 
things.  And  then  he  would  be  driven,  irrevocably,  logically, 
into  the  terrifying  conclusion  that  he  was  the  only  sane  being 
in  a  world  of  madness.  But  the  Jesuit  had  once  said  to  him 
that  all  logic  was  madness.  He  had  tried  to  write  what  he  felt. 

There  had  been  that  sketch  he  had  written  about  that  day  on 
the  Embankment.  He  had  set  it  down  whilst  he  was  still  hot 
from  the  experience.  He  had  sent  it  the  round  of  papers.  Their 
rejection  did  not  make  him  wonder,  until  "The  Churchman" 
refused  it.  That  was  incomprehensible.  He  had  tried  to  ex- 
press something  of  the  things  that  had  stirred  him  when 
the  processions  passed  each  other  and  which  he  assumed  were 
stirring  the  Church  itself.  The  organ  of  orthodoxy  did  not  care 
a  damn  for  his  stirrings. 

It  was  always  like  that  with  his  writing,  and  he  wrote  per- 
sistently. Rejection  was  as  meaningless  as  that  rare  accept- 
ance. It  was  battering  his  head  against  a  wall,  invisible  but 
stony. 

For  a  moment  he  faltered  in  his  stride.  There  were  times 
when  he  had  impellent  longing  to  be  the  average.  He  saw 
the  clerks  about  him  cheered  by  a  drink  of  whisky;  happily 
boastful  of  a  new  pipe,  or  having  "backed  a  winner,"  luxuriat- 
ing in  a  superior  cunning — men  with  little  hopes  and  little 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DREAMS  159 

fears,  unstirred  by  great  emotions.  He  longed  to  be  like  them. 
He  tried  to  make  friends  with  them  as  one  makes  friends  with 
curious  beasts  behind  bars. 

And  then  something  would  happen  to  send  him  into  the  ex- 
treme of  intolerance.  Rather  than  surrender  to  their  little 
caged  lives  he  would  take  a  red  flag  in  his  hand  and  go  out 
with  those  others  in  frank  rebellion  .  .  .  But  were  the 
lives  of  those  others  not  drab?  Were  they  also  not  ambition- 
less?  Were  their  hopes  and  fears  not  as  mean  as  those  with 
whom  he  worked?  And  so  the  circle  from  which  he  could  not 
escape.  It  was  as  though  he  could  not  escape  from  existence 
Itself — a  thought  which  for  a  fleeting  moment  had  been  in- 
supportable— as  though  he  were  being  swung,  controlless,  in 
sickening  orbit  inside  the  film  of  life  without  the  power  to 
break  into  the  infinity  of  non-existence  and  rest  that  lay  be- 
yond. Only  once  had  that  come  to  him,  for  he  knew  he  was 
immortal.  His  immortality  was  the  only  thing  that  held  him 
to  life.  But  he  had  feared  it  that  once. 

Crux  had  sent  for  him  and  had  opened  with:  "Now,  then, 
Fontaine,  no  more  lukewarmedness — you've  got  to  make  good." 
He  resolved  to  do  so.  He  had  not  shown  that  keenness  which 
Crux  demanded  from  all  who  served  him.  Ireland  had  been 
doing  her  work  on  him.  But  once  more  he  resolved. 

He  was  to  go  with  an  engineer  to  Dunhallow  in  April  for 
the  planning  of  a  breakwater  and  factory  at  Black  Rock.  The 
men  were  to  fish.  The  women  were  to  pack.  The  boxes  of 
dried  fish  were  to  be  sent  by  boat  to  Dunhallow  at  the  head 
of  the  bay,  and  there  was  talk  of  a  light  railway  from  Black 
Rock  to  Dunhallow.  There  was  to  be  the  Reverend  Slick, 
there  was  to  be  a  Sunday  School,  plus  the  loaves  and  fishes, 
and  there  was  to  be  a  sort  of  school  for  instruction  in  Big  Busi- 
ness and  Efficiency.  It  was  all  simple. 

Finn  arrived  at  Dunhallow  one  April  evening  in  a  soft  south- 
west wind  and  rain  that  seemed  to  be  the  original  compost  for 
growing  life.  Ireland  was  one  great  forcing  house.  Green 
and  mossy.  He  felt  himself  expanding  under  the  sun  and  rain 
like  a  flower. 

Father  Con  met  him  at  the  train,  with  Johnny  the  Saint 
skirmishing  and  delighted  behind.  When  the  big  priest  took 
his  hand  into  his  and  complimented  him  upon  "growin'  like 
a  young  fir  tree  since  I  saw  ye  last;"  when  he  looked  into 


160  GODS 

those  steady  eyes  and  saw  the  straight  nose  and  firm  jaw;  he 
felt  an  almost  luxurious  sense  of  security  as  though  he  had 
been  a  child  throwing  himself  into  his  father's  arms.  Johnny's 
hands  were  several  shades  darker  than  on  his  first  visit,  al- 
though he  demonstratively  wiped  them  first  upon  the  tails  of 
his  coat,  but  Finn  would  as  soon  have  spat  in  his  face  as 
blenched  at  the  handclasp.  A  sort  of  holy  dirt  surrounded 
him  as  with  a  halo. 

His  reception  at  the  hands  of  Miss  O'Halloran  was  analy- 
tically warm.  After  Johnny  in  excessive  zeal  had  flung  his 
Gladstone  down  upon  one  of  her  "specials,"  as  she  called  the 
protuberances  upon  her  feet,  and  after  the  old  Kitty  had 
leaped  out  in  one  scorching  breath  to  wither  Johnny  where 
he  stood,  she  had  measured  Finn  from  her  height  about  his 
waist-line,  had  given  a  little  suspicious  "H'm!"  and  had 
said:  "Well,  you're  bigger  anyhow — I  hope  you're  better. 
There's  a  nice  cup  of  tea  on  the  hob  this  minute,  for  I've  just 
been  dhrenching  me  insides." 

Finn  could  have  kissed  her  and  did  make  what  Johnny  in 
the  background  called  "an  offer,"  but  for  his  pains  received 
a  slap  on  the  face  from  virginal  acidity.  "Oh,  'tis  kissing  the 
girls  y'are,  is  it?"  the  little  peering  eyes  had  said.  "G'long 
wid  ye  wid  yer  bold  bad  London  ways.  And  settin'  an  example 
to  Johnny  there  that's  positively  frightful."  But  satisfaction 
gleamed  deep  in  the  eye-cavity. 

Finn  was  to  stay  the  night  in  Dunhallow  and  was  to  walk 
out  to  Black  Rock  the  next  afternoon  to  a  Mrs.  O'Hara  of 
whom  he  had  heard  through  Paris  Asthar,  who  lived  in  a  val- 
ley near  Carrickmore  headland  and  with  whom  he  was  to  stay. 
It  seemed  that  Paris  knew  her  through  his  half-sister,  for  he 
had  never  been  in  Ireland.  Mrs.  O'Hara  was  a  widow-woman 
who  lived  alone  with  a  little  boy,  the  child  of  her  dead 
daughter,  Annie,  and  she  was  a  great  friend  of  Deirdre  Asthar, 
whom  she  had  known  as  a  child. 

From  the  moment  when  the  soft  pulsation  of  the  tides  under 
the  old  bridge  had  sent  him  to  sleep,  to  the  next  morning's 
sun  trying  vainly  to  creep  through  the  April  mists,  seemed  but 
a  moment.  He  woke  up  exhilarated,  feeling  the  concretions 
of  London  dissolving  under  the  mists  of  Ireland.  That  scheme 
of  Crux  fell  away  from  him  as  all  such  concrete  things  of 
the  life-struggle  seemed  to  fall  away  in  the  solvent  of  Ire- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DREAMS  161 

land.  But  he  remembered  that  he  had  to  make  his  arrange- 
ments with  Mrs.  O'Hara  and  meet  the  engineer  who  had  pre- 
ceded him  to  Black  Rock,  where  he  was  staying  with  the 
gombeen  man. 

The  sun  had  given  up  the  struggle  and  was  now  engulfed, 
remote,  as  Finn  set  out  in  the  afternoon  on  his  seven  mile 
tramp.  The  scent  of  his  waterproof  blended  with  that  tang  of 
peat  which  the  warm  moist  airs  seemed  to  have  concentrated. 
Croagh  Cromlech's  head  was  wrapped  in  clouds,  and  even  the 
waters  of  the  bay  seemed  to  blend  with  the  sky.  As  he 
walked  along  the  mountain  road,  gradually  rising  from  the  sea 
level,  the  clouds,  sagging,  seemed  to  shut  down  upon  him, 
blending  with  a  sea-fog  which  had  risen  to  meet  them,  until 
he  was  as  much  alone  as  though  he  were  walking  in  a  case  of 
glass.  No  sound  came  to  him  in  the  moving  transparency. 
He  seemed  to  be  moving  up  there  above  a  world  of  shadows. 

As  with  the  knotted  blackthorn  in  his  hand,  a  present  from 
Father  Con,  he  walked  there  remote  on  the  roof  of  the  world, 
the  sound  of  footsteps  came  to  him  out  of  the  woolly  con- 
sistency. He  quickened  his  pace  to  catch  a  moving  shadow 
before  him,  a  woman  wrapped  in  a  long  hooded  cloak,  with 
the  hood  over  her  head.  He  believed  her  to  be  some  peasant 
girl  on  her  way  to  Black  Rock. 

As  he  came  almost  abreast  and  murmured  a  polite  "Fine 
morning,"  the  Irish  salutation  for  all  such  weather,  the  head 
in  the  cloak  turned  to  show  a  pair  of  eyes  which,  in  that  mist, 
shone  like  emeralds.  The  body  of  the  girl  showed  itself  slen- 
derly under  the  folds  of  the  fine  grey  cloak  which  enwrapped 
her  and  his  eye,  travelling  down,  saw  the  finely  modelled  feet, 
not  too  small,  shod  in  a  pair  of  strong  but  well-fitting  porpoise 
hide  boots.  All  at  once,  he  felt  a  great  shyness. 

When  he  looked  up  again,  his  cheeks  burning,  the  face  had 
turned  away,  and  as  he  was  about  to  quicken  his  pace  to  pass 
on,  two  gloved  hands  came  up  to  the  hood  to  throw  it  back 
and  to  set  free  a  tumblement  of  bronzed  hair  and  a  little  smile, 
inscrutable. 

It  was  Deirdre  Asthar. 

Finn  faltered.  The  last  time  he  had  seen  this  girl,  that  day 
on  the  Embankment,  he  had  hated  her.  But  here,  in  the 
soft  south-west  rain  of  Ireland,  of  which  she  seemed  a  part; 
that  too  dissolved.  He  felt  to  her  more  like  a  friend. 


1 62  GODS 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Fontaine?"  she  said,  still  with  that 
little  smile  ghosting  the  firm  lips.  "Don't  you  know  me?" 
And  she  put  out  her  little  suede-gloved  hand. 

Finn  took  it  in  his  great  paw,  and  remembered  as  he  did 
so  that  this  was  the  first  time  he  had  ever  touched  her.  He 
felt  miserably  shy — the  sweat  sprang  to  his  forehead  under 
the  hard  bowler  hat  and  he  could  feel  it  trickling  down  his 
nose  and  back.  He  who  at  times  could  talk  tempestuously 
enough,  felt,  not  merely  tongue-tied — he  felt  ridiculous  be- 
fore the  eyes  that  gleamed  at  him. 

"What  have  you  done  with  your  unemployed  friends?"  the 
girl  asked  with  a  sort  of  demure  mischief  at  the  existence  of 
which  Finn  had  never  guessed.  In  that  place,  Deirdre  Asthar 
seemed  another  being  than  the  one  he  had  known  in  London. 

She  should  not  have  said  it.  In  that  moment,  he  found 
conviction  and  he  found  tongue. 

Deirdre  Asthar  stared  at  him,  her  lips  a  little  parted  over 
the  even  white  teeth,  the  colour  in  her  fair  young  cheeks 
deeper,  as  she  viewed  the  tornado  she  had  unleashed.  Finn 
believed  in  democracy.  He  would  rather  have  been  with  the 
rabble  down  in  the  gutter  that  day  on  the  Embankment  than 
sit  with  her  raised  above  them  in  her  victoria.  He  talked 
some  wild  nonsense  about  a  day  coming  when  these  unem- 
ployed would  be  raised  from  the  dust  and  their  masters  flung 
down.  He  even  talked  wildly  of  Internationalism,  a  word  he 
had  caught  from  Durring  and  the  meaning  of  which  he, 
frankly,  knew  little  or  nothing.  As  to  millions  of  others,  it 
was  to  him  not  much  more  than  a  word.  He  said  things 
which  he  could  not  justify  by  any  known  method  of  reasoning, 
and  he  knew  it,  but  he  hurried  on  to  prevent  retort  and 
criticism. 

"I  thought  you  were  the  young  man  without  a  tongue," 
she  said  after  a  few  moments.  "Oh,  Mr.  Fontaine,  how  could 
you  deceive  a  poor  girl  in  that  way?"  she  went  on  mockingly, 
in  those  deep  low  tones  that  had  something  of  the  chuckle 
of  the  blackbird  in  them. 

The  soft  brogue  came  from  between  her  lips  like  a  flow 
of  buttermilk.  It  was  another  voice  than  the  one  the  listener 
had  heard  that  day  at  Thrum's.  But  in  her  mockery  there  was 
uneasiness,  although  Finn  could  not  see  it  And  then  in  a 
moment  she  had  become  serious  and  had  said  to  him  a 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DREAMS  163 

strange  thing  of  which  he  often  thought  in  the  days  that 
followed:     "'Internationalism,'"   she   had   said     .... 
"the  world     ....     Ireland  is  more  to  me  than  the  whole 
world!" 

For  a  moment  they  walked  together  in  silence.  "You'll  be 
going  out  to  Mrs.  O'Hara's,"  she  said,"  to  the  place  I  call 
'The  House  of  Dreams,'  or  Tig-na-hAislinge  as  we  have  it 
in  the  Irish,  where  I  spent  many  happy  hours  the  first  ten 
years  of  my  life  here  in  Ireland.  Paris  told  me  all  about 
it.  I  am  sorry,  but  you  will  have  to  put  up  with  my  presence 
there.  I  shall  not  be  troubling  you."  In  the  little  voice  there 
was  that  hardening  of  distant  pride.  The  face  had  looked 
out  from  the  veil  of  the  hair  and  hidden  itself  again,  and 
now  she  had  replaced  the  hood. 

For  a  mile  they  walked  silently,  Finn  uncomfortable  and 
still  angry,  wishing  the  mist  would  swallow  her  up.  The  little 
feet  trod  assuredly  by  his  side  in  long,  sure  steps,  the 
girl  apparently  quite  at  her  ease.  As  they  reached  the  grey 
stone  by  the  side  of  the  road  which  marked  the  descent  to 
Black  Rock,  the  mist  lifted  with  the  suddenness  of  Ireland, 
the  sun  came  out  and  revealed  to  him  the  girl,  now  uncowled, 
her  hair  flying,  striding  at  his  side  like  some  wild  thing  of  air 
that  had  come  to  earth. 

Before  them  on  the  road,  a  woman,  bent,  was  walking, 
carrying  something  strapped  loosely  on  her  back.  As  they 
came  behind  her,  they  noticed  the  fine  coil  of  dark-brown  hair 
that  lay  dank  upon  her  neck  and  then  she  turned  her  face 
to  show  them  a  pair  of  grey-blue  eyes  under  finely  arched 
eyebrows,  with  a  mouth  big  and  full  of  humour. 

"God  bless  ye!  Miss,"  she  said,  looking  at  Deirdre.  "It 
is  Paudeen  himself  I  have  on  me  back." 

"Thank  you,  Norah.  You  promised  to  let  me  see  him, 
didn't  you?  Come  over  here  under  the  hedge  and  I  will 
look  at  him." 

The  woman  gave  her  a  sidelong  grateful  look  and  went 
over  to  the  ditch  on  the  edge  of  the  road  carefully  swinging 
her  burden  to  the  front  to  lay  it  down  upon  the  big  grey 
stone,  moisture  covered  and  glistening  in  the  lifting  sun.  From 
somewhere  below,  a  lark  sprang  into  the  upper  air  filling  it 
with  melody.  On  their  left,  a  wall  of  broken  stone,  a  little 
latchet  gate  in  it,  fringed  the  edge  of  the  blue  sea  which 


164  GODS 

stretched  itself  across  to  where  the  glass  of  the  lighthouse 
gleamed  solitary  as  the  sun  struck  it,  on  the  opposite  head- 
land. The  waters  below  were  deserted  and  the  black  line 
of  the  submerged  rocks  menaced  even  under  that  sun. 

The  woman  opened  the  shawl  to  disclose  a  little  child.  He 
might  have  been  three  or  he  might  have  been  ten  years.  The 
child  looked  only  at  his  mother,  the  eyes  moving  heavily  and 
without  control,  the  poor  head  hanging  broken  on  its  neck 
as  a  flower  lies  broken  on  its  stalk. 

The  mother  took  the  poor  wrappings  from  about  its  lower 
limbs  to  show  them,  shrivelled.  The  skeleton  body  lay  on  the 
rock  like  a  sacrifice. 

"I've  prayed  to  the  Holy  saints  and  to  St.  Bride,  Miss. 
Sure  haven't  I  said  my  prayers  day  and  night  up  there  in 
the  grey  chapel  for  little  Paudeen.  But  he  always  lies  like 
that.  It  is  neither  tongue  nor  legs  that  he  has.  God  has  put 
the  heavy  hand  on  him.  Some  do  be  tellin'  me  that  'tis  'the 
good  people'  that  have  changed  him,  Miss.  .  .  ." 

She  looked  at  the  girl,  who  had  knelt  down -by  the  child, 
pulling  off  her  gloves  and  throwing  her  cloak  away  from  her 
to  show  a  dress  of  green  frieze.  The  sun  sprayed  down 
upon  the  masses  of  her  hair  which  fell  forward  to  hide  her 
face,  the  sunbeams  playing  hide  and  seek  in  the  strands.  The 
fine  brows,  straight-drawn  now,  with  something  of  anger  in 
them,  bent  down  in  puzzlement.  She  had  taken  the  little  roll- 
ing head  between  the  two  fine  white  hands  and  then  she  had 
done  a  beautiful  thing.  She  had  stooped  and  kissed  the  help- 
less child  upon  the  pale  slobbering  lips. 

In  that  moment,  Finn  standing  behind,  watching  the  smooth 
whiteness  of  the  neck  where  the  bronze  meshes  had  parted 
themselves,  felt  something  go  through  him  like  a  pain.  It 
was  something  that  made  him  catch  his  breath.  He  bent  a 
little  over  the  girl.  She  looked  up,  caught  the  glance  in  his 
eyes,  and  then  her  own  had  lighted  and  fallen. 

As,  silent,  they  walked  away  under  the  sunlight,  the  girl 
had  flung  her  cloak  back  from  her  shoulders  as  though  she 
had  some  difficulty  in  breathing.  As  he  stole  a  glance  at  her, 
the  hardness  in  the  eyes  and  brows  astonished  him.  It  was 
another  girl  than  that  of  the  moment  before.  There  was 
something  of  tense  defiance  about  the  figure.  And  so  they 
passed  downwards  in  long  slants  to  the  valley  by  the  sea. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  DREAMS  165 

They  happened  on  it  where  it  ran  in  backward  slant  through 
a  break  in  the  wall  of  the  cliff  on  the  right.  A  deep  and 
narrow  cleft  it  was,  with  a  little  stream,  fringed  by  the  red 
foxglove,  murmuring  along  its  base,  to  fall  here,  in  miniature 
cascades,  there,  to  spread  out  in  what  Deirdre  called  "dotey" 
pools  in  which  the  speckled  brown  trout  swam. 

It  was  a  green,  almost  treeless,  valley  in  which  the  shamrock, 
amongst  the  rocks  that  hung  over  the  stream,  grew  in  places 
unsuspected,  the  sides  of  which  were  marked  by  grey  boulders 
beneath  which  yellow  toadstools  nestled,  whilst  under  the 
September  mists  the  white  mushroom  was  wont  to  peep  out 
in  the  fairy  rings.  High  upon  the  right  crest,  an  old  rath  or 
fort,  or,  as  it  was  called  by  the  peasants,  the  place  of  the  "good 
people,"  showed  its  green  mounds.  Some  said  that  under 
the  full  moon  one  could  hear  the  fairy  music  or  even  see  the 
little  people  disporting  themselves  if  one  had  "the  sight,"  but 
others  said  that  it  was  but  the  tinkle  of  the  streamlet  below. 

They  had  passed  in  silence  through  the  valley  by  the  sea 
by  way  of  the  narrow  footpath  that  ran  along  the  stream  and 
had  come  out  into  the  wooded,  bird-haunted  country  beyond, 
remote  from  the  presence  of  man  as  are  the  places  of  God. 

Now  they  were  in  a  boreen  that  wound  secretly  between 
its  bramble-hung  walls,  against  the  lichened  stones  of  which 
the  red  veinery  of  the  stems  clustered  in  the  softness  of  the 
April  afternoon.  The  nut  trees  filtered  a  tracery  of  sun- 
light upon  the  grass-grown  furrows  of  evening,  across  which 
sleuthed  a  weasel-shape  of  thin  wickedness  that  seemed  to 
pass  into  the  heap  of  stones  where  the  wall  had  crumbled  in 
upon  itself,  whilst  from  the  hawthorn,  now  breaking  in  the 
buds  of  spring,  a  blackbird  flew,  shrieking. 

The  boreen  twisted  itself  a  little  and  Finn  found  himself 
looking  through  the  high  gates  of  rusted  iron  that  swung  loose- 
ly from  the  stark  pillars  of  limewashed  stone  which  sentinelled 
the  cobbles  of  the  ancient  courtyard,  about  three  sides  of 
which  the  long  low  building  nestled. 

They  stood  on  the  hither  side  of  the  gate,  'prisoned  by 
the  shadows  of  the  towering  elms  that  leant  themselves  over 
the  stables  which  formed  the  left  and  back  of  the  house,  to 
quarter  the  westering  sun  into  golden  blotches  upon  the  mossy 
cobbles.  The  windless  shadows  lay  heavy  on  the  stones.  In 
one  corner,  an  elderberry  hung  its  grey  stems  in  lonely  friend- 


1 66  GODS 

liness.  The  greenhearted  panes  of  the  glass  verandah  which 
to  the  right  ran  the  full  length  of  the  dwelling  itself,  glowed 
dully  with  red  fire. 

The  gate  sang  its  lullaby  as  they  passed  through  and  crossed 
the  yard.  The  empty  stables  on  the  left,  their  yellow  walls 
stained  by  time,  showed  doorless — square  black  sepulchres  of 
emptiness  from  which  came  no  low  of  cattle  or  whinny  of 
horse.  The  jagged  shaft  of  a  wheelless  cart  pointed  brokenly 
upwards. 

As  they  came  to  the  door  in  the  centre  of  the  verandah, 
over  which  the  broken  bell-pull  swung  desolately,  the  girl 
had  held  up  her  hand  with  a  little  warning  gesture,  in  it 
something  of  solemnity,  and  so  Finn  had  peered  through  the 
glass  of  the  verandah  and  the  open  door  inside  into  the  room 
beyond. 

It  was  then  he  saw  the  old  lady  kneeling  over  her  beads  to 
face  the  sun  now  setting  behind  the  lonely  stems  of  the  ash 
grove  which  showed  themselves  through  the  long  window  on  the 
other  side  of  the  house.  Behind  her,  where  a  fire  of  peats 
burned  low  under  the  glow  of  the  April  sun,  a  little  boy  leant 
his  head  in  the  corner  of  the  open  chimney-place,  as  though 
it  were  too  heavy.  As  he  looked,  a  wrinkled  hand  went  up  to 
the  bowed  head  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross.  The  old 
woman,  a  figure  of  a  lofty  fineness,  stood  up,  seemed  to  feel 
their  presence,  and  turned  to  them  with  a  gracious  beckoning 
gesture. 

"Ah,  'tis  you,  is  it  alannah?"  she  said  to  Deirdre  as  she 
came  towards  her,  the  lips  compressed  as  with  pain,  the  grey 
eyes  with  the  loving  hopeless  look  that  printed  itself  upon 
Finn's  memory  for  ever. 

She  had  turned  to  him,  in  her  gracious  way. 

"And  you'll  be  Mr.  Fontaine,"  she  said.  "Welcome  to  the 
House  of  Dreams,  Mr.  Fontaine!" 

She  smiled  a  little  to  him. 


XVI 


For  something  over  a  year,  Finn  travelled  backwards  and 
forwards  between  London  and  Dunhallow  in  connection  with 
the  Black  Rock  scheme,  which,  however,  had  been  consider- 
ably delayed  by  Crux's  enforced  absence  in  the  United  States, 
where  he  was  arranging  one  of  his  financial  combinations  and 
also  getting  support  for  an  ultimate  Anglo-American  company 
for  the  exploitation  of  Irish  industries,  of  which  Black  Rock 
was  to  be  the  first. 

During  that  year,  the  gaunt  spreading  boy  had  been  knit- 
ting together  both  in  mind  and  body.  He  no  longer  looked 
as  though  he  were  growing  out  of  his  clothes,  and  the  lines 
of  the  face  were  more  assured,  whilst,  with  the  tumult  be- 
hind beginning  to  find  its  outlet  through  more  ordered  chan- 
nels, the  physical  features  seemed  to  be  settling  into  relation 
one  with  the  other. 

And  yet  there  was  trouble  in  the  face — the  trouble  that 
had  come  to  adolescence  in  the  presence  of  a  beautiful  woman 
whose  distant  watchfulness  was  fast  changing  into  something 
closer,  more  intimate.  For  the  girl  who  had  kissed  him  was 
no  longer  immobile.  She  had  begun  the  spoiling. 

Deirdre  Asthar  he  had  seen  fleetingly  during  his  stays  in 
the  House  of  Dreams,  and  once  in  London,  a  day  when  he  had 
visited  her  brother  at  his  house  and  when  she  had  passed 
him  in  the  hall  with  a  nod  of  indifference.  It  had  given  him 
one  of  those  little  chills  to  which  he  was  now  accustomed,  for 
from  that  moment  of  the  sick  child  by  the  roadside  she  had 
held  herself  towards  him  in  haughty  aloofness,  and  he,  sensi- 
tively proud,  had  been  hurt  into  anger.  But  to  Mrs.  O'Hara 
and  Patsey,  and  always  to  Paris,  with  that  strange  close  bond 
that  united  them,  she  could  be  warmly  loving,  though  always 
wilful,  whilst  to  the  people  of  Black  Rock,  who  had  known 
her  from  childhood  and  who  had  taught  her  the  Irish,  she 

167 


1 68  GODS 

was  a  sort  of  earthly  vicaress  to  the  Blessed  Mother  herself. 

On  one  of  his  visits  he  had  heard  of  her  in  a  strange  con- 
nection. It  was  said  that  she  had  begun  to  gather  the  boys  and 
girls  of  Black  Rock  around  her  in  an  old  disused  school- 
house  where  she  would  tell  them  the  story  of  Ireland  and 
sing  to  them  the  songs  of  Ireland.  And  he  thought  of  what 
she  had  said  to  him  that  day  about  Internationalism  and  of 
how  Ireland  was  more  to  her  than  the  whole  world.  Mrs. 
O'Hara  herself  had  told  him  that  as  a  child  Deirdre  had  had 
many  childish  quarrels  with  her  father  about  Ireland  and  that 
the  people  used  to  call  her  "the  little  patriot."  But  when  she 
had  gone  to  London,  all  this  seemed  to  have  been  submerged 
by  her  new  associations. 

Everything  about  Deirdre  Asthar  had  the  property  of  affect- 
ing Finn  strongly  and  this  thing  was  no  exception.  It  im- 
pressed him  disagreeably.  Things,  slight  in  themselves,  could, 
when  touched  by  this  girl,  assume  an  irritating  and  ridiculous 
significance.  In  bed  at  night,  his  mind  would  seize  upon  some 
trifle  in  connection  with  her,  upon  which,  his  imagination 
working,  he  would  find  himself  in  a  fever. 

In  London  he  had  been  haunting  all  sorts  of  meetings  at 
which  the  rising  faith  of  Internationalism  was  being  preached. 
To  him,  Internationalism  and  Nationality  were  of  necessity 
two  opposites.  The  path  to  this  nebulous  Internationalism  lay 
over  the  corpse  of  Nationality.  It  began  to  come  to  him  that 
Nationality  and  Internationalism  were  two  world-faiths,  the 
older  and  the  newer,  each  with  its  priests  and  devotees,  their 
tenets,  not  argued,  but  preached.  They  were  not  politics, 
but  religion. 

It  flashed  upon  him,  as  something  incredible,  that  perhaps 
everything  was  religion — and  passed  again. 

Yet  he  would  sometimes  find  Ireland  calling  to  him  as  to  a 
long-lost  child — and  in  those  moments  Internationalism  seemed 
very  far  away.  And  all  this,  in  some  way  not  clear,  was 
bound  up  with  Deirdre  Asthar. 

Finn  could  not  fathom  this  girl  of  contrariness  and  at  times 
could  hate  her  very  sincerely.  Mrs.  O'Hara  would  sometimes 
look  from  one  to  the  other,  the  lips  compressed,  a  light  of 
humour  and  pain  in  the  tender  hopeless  eyes,  and  that  also 
irritated  Finn. 

During  his  first  stay  with  Mrs.  O'Hara,  she  had  flitted  in 


"AND  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  ..."  169 

and  out  of  the  house  like  a  shadow  and  sometimes  he  would 
hear  the  sound  of  her  lute  and  the  full  dark  notes  coming 
from  her  room  or  from  the  ashgrove  outside,  where,  amongst 
the  grey  stems,  she  loved  to  sit  and  play.  And  once  he 
had  been  witness  of  a  queer  little  scene  after  she  had  sung 
Yeats'  "Hosting  of  the  Sidhe:" 

The  host  is  riding  from  Knocknarea, 
And  over  the  grave  of  Clooth-na-bare; 

Caolte  tossing  his  burning  hair, 

And  Niamh  calling  "Away,  come  away!" 
Empty  your  heart  of  its  mortal   dream. 
The  winds  awaken,  the  leaves  whirl  round, 
Our  cheeks  are  pale,  our  hair  is  unbound, 
Our  breasts  are  heaving,  our  eyes  are  a-gleam, 
Our  arms  are  waving,  our  lips  are  apart.     .     .     . 

The  host  is  rushing  'twixt  night  and  day; 
And  where  is  there  hope  or  deed  as  fair? 

Caolte  tossing  his  burning  hair, 

And  Niamh  calling,  "Away,  come  away!" 

As  she  sat  there  in  the  April  night,  she  seemed  herself  a 
creature  of  the  gloaming.  Beneath  the  stuff  of  her  dress 
that  had  the  texture  of  a  grey  wrinkled  leaf,  the  little  rounded 
breasts  heaved,  the  eyes  gleamed,  and  when  she  had  finished 
with  lips  parted,  the  eyes,  with  something  of  the  night  in 
them  looked  out  through  the  ashen  stems  into  the  glow  where 
the  sun  slept. 

Little  Patsey,  his  head  heavy  with  dreams,  had  been  listen- 
ing to  the  song  in  the  shadow  of  the  house,  his  arm  around 
the  neck  of  his  white  calf,  into  the  ears  of  which  he  whispered 
like  some  necromancer,  his  grey  eyes  opening  out  to  watch 
the  singer.  Then  had  come  that  breaking  of  the  spell.  Her 
lips  had  shut,  her  eyes  had  dropped  back  into  the  world  from 
the  faraway,  and  she  had  turned  to  the  boy  who  was  look- 
ing at  her  with  parted  eyes  and  lips:  "But  you  know,  Patsey 
boy,  there  are  no  fairies.  It's  only  a  song." 

The  boy  had  looked  on  her  with  wondering  reproach  as 
he  pressed  the  white  neck  of  the  calf  more  closely:  "Oh, 
Miss  Deirdre,  'tis  joking  that  ye  are.  Sure  the  whole  world 
knows  that  'the  good  people'  are  as  real  as  ourselves.  Didn't 
I  see  a  cluricaune  once  down  there  by  the  stream,  mending 

/ 


170  GODS 

his  brogues  under  the  shadow  of  a  foxglove?     No  fairies  1" 
He  gave  one  of  his  little  weird  laughs. 

And  the  evening  before  he  left  for  London.  He  remembered 
that.  For  the  grey-eyed  woman  that  seemed  to  mother  all 
things  about  her,  whether  they  went  on  two  feet  or  four,  had 
also  mothered  the  strange  boy  who  had  come  under  her  roof. 
A  bond  had  grown  between  them  that  might  have  been  that 
of  mother  and  son  if  there  had  not  also  been  in  it  a  strange- 
ness of  romance — for  sometimes  when  he  would  be  looking 
into  the  steadfast  eyes  under  their  serene  brows  it  would  seem 
to  him  for  a  moment  that  he  was  looking  into  the  eyes  of  a 
beautiful  young  girl  whom  he  had  known  in  some  far  off 
place  and  time. 

Mrs.  O'Hara  that  June  evening  had  been  seated  before  the 
turf  fire  in  the  kitchen  turning  the  wooden  wheel  of  the  blower 
in  the  fire-shadows.  Patsey  sat  in  the  corner,  listening  to  the 
cluckety-cluck  of  the  wheel  and  drowsing  at  the  fire  as  it 
blew  up  in  little  fountains  of  sparks,  for  summer  or  winter 
he  loved  to  sit  there.  The  old  kitchen  with  the  naked  rafters 
and  the  little  wooden  ladder  leading  to  the  "loft"  was  full 
of  strange  shadows  that  danced  under  the  gleam  of  the  flames. 
It  was  then  that  Mrs.  O'Hara  seated  on  the  little  three-cor- 
nered stool  told  Finn  and  Patsey,  under  the  pulsing  of  the 
wheel,  about  the  shadows. 

"Sure,  aren't  they  my  friends?"  she  had  said.  "Aren't  they 
company  for  me  in  the  long  nights  of  winter  and  in  the  sum- 
mer twilights?  And  don't  they  bring  things  in  with  them  to 
sit  there  forninst  me — I  that  have  lost  my  childer  and  my 
man  and  that  have  only  Patsey  left?  ....  and  Deirdre, 
of  course,"  she  had  said  after  a  moment,  "...  and 
Finn,"  she  added  after  another  little  moment,  bending  her 
head  to  look  tenderly  on  the  boy.  Even  as  she  had  spoken, 
there  came  the  sound  of  the  lute  from  the  outside  of  the 
house  and  the  voice  of  the  singer: 

....    Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  creep 
To  the  twilight  edge  of  to-morrow's  sleep. 

Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  fly 
Over  the  faint  of  the  western  sky. 

Come,  dear  heart,  on  the  shadows'  flight 
As  we  whisper  together  the  last  good-night.  .  .    " 


"AND  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  ..."  171 

It  came  back  to  him — that  evening  at  "The  Cloisters,"  and 
the  slim  fine  shoulders  of  the  singer  under  the  shaded  lights. 

These  were  the  things  that  were  passing  through  his  mind 
as  he  sat  over  his  breakfast  in  Ash  Villa  one  morning  of  early 
September.  He  had  been  reading  "The  Earth,"  which  had 
now  sent  out  a  trumpet  call  for  Thrum's  new  Imperial  Cru- 
sade. Not  a  single  call,  but  rather  a  series  of  blasts  which 
had  been  headed  "Wake  up  England!"  and  which  looked 
like  deafening  even  Thrum's  public,  now  used  to  megaphonic 
announcements. 

The  new  crusade  was  being  preached  as  fanatically  as 
ever  Peter  the  Hermit  had  preached  the  original.  Its  ob- 
ject, as  it  avowed  with  simple  directness,  was  "to  paint  the 
map  red."  According  to  "The  Earth,"  nobody  knew  or  ap- 
parently cared  how  the  Empire  had  grown.  Now,  every  child 
in  the  school  was  to  be  taught  that  as  a  matter  of  religion; 
and,  after  that,  taught  to  shoot.  In  the  new  Crusade,  as  in 
the  old,  slaughter  and  religion  appeared  in  some  way  to  be 
interchangeable  terms.  There  was  but  one  cure  for  the 
troubles  of  the  world:  a  dose  of  Empire  plus  a  dose  of  grape. 

And  it  was  a  Crusade.  It  was  all  very  well  for  the  oppos- 
ing and  usually  unsuccessful  papers  to  talk  about  Thrum  as 
"the  mad  Imperialist."  Thrum  at  least  spoke  with  conviction 
and  with  passion — imperial  passion. 

The  call  to  empire  had  drowned  everything,  including  a 
new  battle  between  Sir  Lancaster  Hogge  and  Sir  Raymond 
Hilary,  which  had  broken  out  in  spite  of  every  effort  by  the 
editor  of  "The  Earth"  to  stop  it,  and  which,  dislodged  at 
last  from  its  columns,  they  had  continued  from  paper  to 
paper  in  a  series  of  skirmishes  into  which  Professor  Dust,  as 
usual,  had  butted  with  a  perfect  trail  of  trematodes  wriggling 
in  his  wake,  whilst  the  Bishop  of  Whitechapel,  at  first  timor- 
ous on  the  brink,  had  finally  been  drawn  into  this  terrible 
circle  as  a  boat  is  drawn  into  a  whirlpool.  The  public  at 
that  moment  being  more  nearly  concerned  for  their  stomachs, 
which  were  empty,  than  for  their  souls,  of  which  they  were 
scarcely  conscious,  had  quickly  lost  interest  in  the  battle, 
which,  owing  to  the  eminence  of  the  contestants,  no  editor 
had  the  courage  to  stop. 

The  whole  thing  might  have  dragged  on  indefinitely  had  it 
not  been  for  one  editor,  more  knowing  than  the  rest,  inviting 


1 72  GODS 

Professor  Dust  to  contribute  his  views  upon  the  latest  refuta- 
tion of  the  Darwinian  theory  upon  environment,  which  in- 
stantly had  drawn  Professor  Hogge  and  so  sidetracked  the 
main  discussion. 

On  the  heels  of  this  rout  Lanthorn  had  hung,  snapping, 
now  here,  now  there,  choosing  his  bites  with  shrewd  judg- 
ment. The  other  combatants  fought  shy  as  far  as  possible  of 
a  man  who  seemed  to  be  conducting  a  sort  of  ghostly  post- 
office  and  doing  it  so  practically  and  effectively  that  it 
seemed  difficult  to  disprove  his  assertions.  But,  as  Sir  Lan- 
caster Hogge  said:  "a  Borderland  Bureau  was  a  bit  too  thick." 
Sir  Lancaster  was  showing  a  steady  tendency  to  offensiveness 
as  he  got  older  and  he  had  been  having  a  bad  time  lately  with 
Dust  upon  "variation." 

As  a  sort  of  tin  whistle  after  all  this  pother,  came  a  tootle, 
obviously  heavily  pruned  from  what  had  originally  been  the 
blast  of  a  trombone,  from  Uncle  Bobs  upon  rice  as  an  Im- 
perial Food.  (The  capitals  were  his.)  There  were  some  in- 
volved statistics  showing  Japan's  climb  to  power  on  rice,  and 
in  the  gaps  Finn  could  read  "nuts,  onions,  and  water."  As 
it  was,  his  uncle  had  managed  to  get  in  "Nature,  Sir,  Nature!" 
three  times.  Bobs  was  a  terrible  imperialist. 

Finn,  reading  these  things,  felt  that  sense  of  unreality 
which  had  crept  upon  him  during  the  preceding  year.  In 
some  obscure  way,  Ireland  made  all  these  things  seem  futile. 
Not  only  had  they  no  power  to  beat  their  way  through  that 
invisible  barrier  which  seemed  to  envelop  the  island  and  hold 
it  virginal  to  the  great  world,  but  the  island  itself  seemingly 
had  the  power  to  invest  those  who  visited  it  with  a  sort  of 
unresponsiveness  to  these  assaults  of  the  great  world  outside. 
Father  Con  had  once  said  to  him:  "All  the  world  lies  out- 
side Ireland — and  Ireland  outside  the  world." 

To  all  this  unreality  came  Crux  with  the  next  link  in  his 
scheme — the  proselytisation  of  Black  Rock,  which  Finn  was 
now  again  about  to  visit. 

The  Reverend  Slick,  "the  Yankee  patent  priest"  as  he  had 
been  invidiously  called  by  some  disgruntled  and  probably  un- 
successful clergyman  of  orthodoxy,  had  been  holding  ex- 
pensive Primitive  Christian  seances  (the  word  used  by  the  dis- 
gruntled one)  in  the  Great  Rotunda  in  Kensington  each 
Sunday,  being  especially  strong  on  Revelation  and  the  coming 


"AND  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  ..."  173 

of  a  world-war.  His  arguments  were  punctuated  by  horned 
beasts  and  colour-splashed  by  the  Scarlet  Woman,  whose  gar- 
ments of  sin  fluttered  themselves  through  his  more  excited 
periods.  With  considerable  dexterity  he  had  managed  to  fasten 
the  more  doubtful  qualities  both  of  the  animals  and  the  lady 
upon  his  opponents.  There  was  no  doubt  about  his  success. 
Thousands  had  to  be  turned  away  at  what  the  disgruntled 
critic  had  called  "each  performance,"  and  he  was  already 
being  hailed  by  men  and  women  throughout  the  metropolis 
as  a  Prince  of  Revelation.  The  clean-shaven  upper  lip  and 
fringe  of  beard  began  to  appear  in  the  Sunday  newspapers, 
and  very  nice  things  had  been  said  about  their  owner  in 
exalted  quarters. 

He  had  made  what  he  himself  called  in  his  page  advertise- 
ments now  filling  "The  Earth"  and  other  newspapers,  "a 
special  line,"  by  dealing  with  modern  commerce,  more  par- 
ticularly upon  its  gargantuan  sides,  calling  it  "the  new  Revela- 
tion of  our  times."  "Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that 
are  Caesar's  ..."  was  one  of  his  favourite  texts,  and  Crux 
himself  had  initiated  what  was  becoming  quite  a  fashionable 
habit  with  employers,  who  sent  their  clerks  to  the  preat  Ro- 
tunda where  seats  were  reserved  for  them.  All  seats  were 
free  and  it  was  reported  that  Crux  held  the  purse-strings. 

But  one  thing  had  come  to  Finn  to  puzzle  him — the  fact 
that  even  the  Reverend  Elias  Z.  Slick  had  begun  to  preach 
upon  wars  and  rumours  of  wars.  This  was  to  him  one  of 
those  strange  linkings  of  opposites.  Father  Con  had  spoken 
of  God  getting  mad  if  Europe  persisted  in  her  materialism 
and  of  his  sending  a  great  war  to  wipe  it  out.  He  had  heard 
Paris  Asthar  making  some  such  reference  also.  Father 
Lestrange  had  frequently  spoken  of  it — and  even  his  father, 
who  seemed  to  derive  much  comfort  from  it,  in  that  dim  re- 
ligious way  of  his,  had  talked  vaguely  of  "a  great  war  to  de- 
stroy the  ungodly."  And  now,  a  man  utterly  unlike  all  these, 
Slick  himself,  was  talking  on  the  same  lines. 

When  he  reached  Black  Rock  in  the  September  evening,  the 
dying  sun  was  sending  its  dull  tawn  across  the  gently  heaving 
tides,  which  seemed  to  breathe  under  the  orange  moon  loom- 
ing in  the  sky  as  on  that  evening  when  he  had  first  come 
to  Dunhallow.  Out  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon  hung  a  soli- 
tary fishing  boat  as  though  it  slid  on  the  edge  of  the  world. 


174  GODS 

Above  him,  the  ruined  walls  of  the  old  chapel  looked  out  over 
the  seas.  It  might  have  stood  there  from  the  days  when 
mortality  had  not  yet  separated  from  the  immortality  that  was 
its  mother  and  when  mortals  and  immortals  still  communed  to- 
gether. 

And  then,  inconsequent,  the  Reverend  Slick's  broad-brimmed 
hat,  hard  calculating  mouth  and  square-cut  frock-coat  came 
sailing  into  all  this. 

Finn  wondered  what  Black  Rock  would  do  with  this  incursion 
from  the  twentieth  century.  Would  it  throw  him  over  Carrick- 
more  or  take  him  out  there  into  the  illimitable  and  leave 
him  in  it,  or  would  it  simply  ignore  him? 

Black  Rock  was  civil  to  patent  theology  as  it  would  have 
been  civil  to  the  Devil  himself  had  he  chosen  to  walk  up  its 
only  street  with  sufficient  discretion  to  leave  his  horns  and 
hoofs  at  home — or  at  least  to  clothe  his  nether  extremities  in 
trousers  and  his  horns  in  the  silk  hat  of  respectability.  Black 
Rock  was  simple  and  pastoral,  but  Black  Rock — it  was  one 
of  Finn's  shocks — in  spite  of  its  contempt  for  the  things  of 
this  world  had  no  contempt  for  money.  It  would  take  a  man's 
money  and  thank  him — but  it  was  incorruptible.  Money  could 
not  buy  the  heart  of  the  Black  Rock  Turks.  Father  Con 
had  said  to  him:  "Ah,  'tis  Father  Hennessey  or  something 
that  has  spoiled  them.  Sure  they'd  sell  anything  they  had 
for  money  except  their  souls  or  their  honour." 

And  so,  when  the  Reverend  Slick,  shrewd-eyed  and  hard 
but  not  close-fisted,  asked  Black  Rock  to  build  the  tabernacle 
of  the  new  theology  which  was  to  challenge  and  finally  over- 
come that  of  the  old,  standing  up  there  on  Carrickmore — Black 
Rock  responded  with  secret  gladness.  And  when  the  red 
bricks  were  dumped  by  special  ship  at  the  foot  of  Carrick- 
more, all  the  labourers  and  masons  of  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try came  forward  to  unload  them  and  to  put  them  in  place. 
And  when  the  reverend  gentleman,  challenging  the  primeval 
with  the  primitive,  chose  the  site  for  the  new  church  upon  a 
rocky  point  a  few  hundred  yards  away  from  and  a  few  hun- 
dred feet  below  the  steepness  of  the  old  rock,  Black  Rock 
never  quibbled  but  set  to  work  with  a  will  and  whiskied  and 
feasted  for  many  days  thereafter. 

The  Reverend  Slick  rubbed  his  hands  in  secret.  Where  he 
had  expected  opposition  there  was  no  opposition — only  will- 


"AND  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  ..."  175 

ing  work.  Money,  under  God  of  course,  ruled  the  world.  And 
so  the  reverend  gentleman  gloated.  He  had  never  had  a 
failure  either  with  the  things  of  this  world  or  with  those  of 
the  world  to  come. 

And  with  these  things  of  the  next  world  were  going  the 
things  of  this.  Already,  below,  the  new  pier  was  forming  it- 
self out  of  the  uneasy  seas,  whilst  a  space  had  been  cleared 
by  the  water's  edge  and  on  it  was  being  built  the  first  of  the 
fish-curing  stations.  Black  Rock,  miserably  poor,  had  never 
seen  so  much  money  before,  except  on  those  odd  occasions  when 
one  of  its  sons  or  daughters  returning  from  America  in  the 
plumes  and  broadcloth  of  civilisation,  had  given  it  an  infre- 
quent taste  of  the  root  of  all  evil.  What  with  the  necessity 
of  housing  new  workmen,  and  the  new  wages,  Mr.  Higgins 
looked  like  becoming  in  the  fulness  of  time  the  gombeen  king 
of  Ireland.  He  could  be  seen  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night, 
the  nose  hooking  itself  out  beak-like  from  between  the  little 
stinging  eyes,  exhorting:  "Come  now,  Mickey,  quick  there 
with  the  car  for  his  honour!"  or  "Kitty — for  God's  sake  don't 
burn  Mr.  Busby's  bacon,  or  I'll  lambast  you!"  The  publics 
house  was  filled  to  the  doors  and  there  had  been  some  very 
free  fights  and  much  drunkenness.  Old  Biddy  Moriarty,  who 
ought  to  have  known  better,  had  even  appeared  one  Sunday 
morning  outside  the  chapel  with  a  bottle  of  whiskey  in  the 
hanging  pocket  under  her  red  flannel  petticoat,  which  she 
raised  both  conspicuously  and  frequently. 

Father  Hennessey  was  blooming.  On  Sundays  he  held  forth 
upon  the  dangers  of  strong  drink,  but  as  he  always  finished 
up  with  the  duties  of  hospitality  from  the  standpoint  of 
faith  and  morals,  of  which  he  was  always  talking,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  stranger  within  the  gate,  it  rather  weakened  his 
exhortation. 

Black  Rock,  in  fact,  began  to  get  quite  a  name  in  the  sur- 
rounding country.  From  a  place  which  at  one  time  had 
scarcely  been  visited  or  spoken  of,  it  had  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  rather  uproarious  little  hell  where  "dhrink,  divil- 
ment  and  divarsion"  was  the  order  of  the  day — and  night. 
Parties  of  young  bloods  from  Dunhallow  were  in  the  habit  of 
riding  out  on  their  bicycles  in  the  evenings  to  share  in  the 
general  festivities  and  Mr.  Higgins'  whiskey,  but  the  Black- 
rockers,  with  strong  local  sense,  soon  stopped  that  by  beating 


176  GODS 

half  a  dozen  of  them  into  unconsciousness  and  depositing 
them  outside  the  village  bounds.  The  Reverend  Slick  was 
their  meat. 

What  the  Reverend  Elias  Z.  Slick  thought  of  all  this,  he 
did  not  say.  Possibly  he  viewed  it  with  an  indulgent  eye  as 
proof  positive  of  the  need  of  the  new  church  and  as  per- 
haps a  necessary  preparation,  for,  as  he  often  said:  "the  ways 
of  God  are  past  finding  out." 

It  was  on  this  high  note  of  feasting  and  revelry  that  the 
opening  of  the  new  church  was  announced  exactly  thirteen 
months  from  that  September  evening  when  Finn,  now  in  his 
twenty-second  year,  had  arrived  in  Black  Rock,  unwilling 
herald  of  Primitive  Christianity  and  proselytisation.  It  was  to 
take  place  in  the  evening.  There  was  to  be  a  service  of  the 
lightest  possible  nature  with  the  new  patent  imported  organist 
to  play  upon  the  patent  American  organ  which  had  also  been 
imported.  And  after  the  service  there  were  to  be  the  loaves  and 
fishes  which  had  worked  such  wonders  in  Limehouse. 

Finn  made  his  way  upon  this  tempestuous  evening  of  late 
autumn  from  the  House  of  Dreams  up  to  the  red  brick  taber- 
nacle. The  rain  blew  down  in  soughing  gusts  from  the  sides 
of  Croagh  Cromlech  under  the  winnow  of  the  south-west  wind. 
The  boreen  was  running  ankle-deep  in  water,  the  stones  shin- 
ing under  the  moisture.  Something  cried  and  flew  across  the 
boreen,  almost  brushing  his  face,  upon  which  he  could  feel 
the  beat  of  wings — some  nightbird  which  had  been  driven  by 
weather  stress  into  the  lower  branches  of  the  hawthorn — the 
ghost  of  that  bird  of  nearly  two  years  ago.  Above  his  head,  he 
could  hear  the  groaning  of  the  elms  as  they  ground  together. 

A  foxglove  here  and  there  hung  melancholy  over  the  stream 
as  he  walked  along  it,  and  so  he  came  out  of  the  valley  to  make 
his  way  slowly  up  to  the  tabernacle  gleaming  bright  and  new 
in  flaring  contrast  to  the  old  ruined  chapel  upon  the  brow  of 
the  headland  above. 

The  road  and  the  new  gravel  way  up  to  the  building  showed 
no  signs  of  life,  and  as  he  entered  the  church,  well-warmed  and 
garnished,  and  in  the  porch  saw,  displayed  upon  tables,  the 
loaves  and  fishes,  he  wondered.  He  passed  into  the  building  to 
find  there  Busby,  the  engineer,  and  four  or  five  of  the  English 
workmen  who  had  not  yet  gone  back  to  England. 

For  all  its  varnish  and  garnish  the  place  had  the  desolation 


"AND  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  ..."  177 

of  new  buildings.  He  took  his  seat  in  the  silence,  which  was 
broken  by  the  organ  grinding  out  one  of  the  most  successful 
of  the  Reverend  Slick's  hymns,  with  that  touch  of  the  music- 
hall  which,  hovering  on  the  edge  of  cheerfulness,  stopped  short 
at  ribaldry.  In  it  was  something  brazen — in  it  something 
of  those  great  steam-driven  motor  organs  of  the  rounda- 
bouts. 

He  played  and  stopped.  And  again  he  played.  It  was  past 
the  hour  of  opening.  The  church  doors  gaped  emptily  towards 
the  village. 

The  Reverend  Slick,  his  brows  black  as  the  skies  outside,  ap- 
peared and  gave  his  address.  He  spoke,  challengingly,  from 
the  text:  "And  upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church.  .  .  ." 
He  told  the  handful  of  the  faithful  that  this  was  only  the  be- 
ginning. The  church  had  been  built  upon  this  rock  in  this 
pagan  country  and  there  it  would  stay.  He  repeated:  "And 
upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church  .  .  .  .  "  pausing 
as  though  waiting  for  someone  to  take  up  his  challenge.  It 
came. 

A  ribald  laugh  from  Lanty,  the  village  idiot,  who  had  stolen 
in  unobserved  and  who  now  ran  out  into  the  grey  emptiness. 
They  could  hear  the  laugh  irrepressible  break  out  again  and 
again  in  the  distance  as  he  ran  down  the  hill  to  tell  the  vil- 
lage about  "that  quare  ould  fellow  up  there  and  his  funny 
God." 

After  the  service,  the  Reverend  Slick,  old  warhorse  of  a 
hundred  fights,  a  terrible  figure  of  a  man,  determined  to  go 
through  with  what  he  had  begun,  waiting  there  implacable 
by  the  side  of  the  groaning  tables.  He  looked  down  through 
the  doors  into  the  village,  in  the  purple  shadows  of  which  the 
lights  began  to  shine. 

As  Finn  passed  the  shrine  of  the  old  faith  crouching  up 
there  under  evening  skies  from  which  all  storm  had  passed, 
its  ruined  walls  stark  against  the  fainted  starshine  of  the  pur- 
ple night,  its  windows,  throwing  back  the  sun  sinking  be- 
neath the  rim  of  the  ocean,  seemed  to  burst  into  flame.  It 
crouched  there,  looking  out  into  the  centuries,  empty  out  as- 
sured. "  .  .  .  .  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it." 

He  walked  down  the  hill  into  the  gathering  night. 


XVII 

GHOST-HUNTING 

Dunhallow  was  discursive.  In  its  eleven  centuries  of  exist- 
ence it  had  not  been  so  moved,  not  even  when  Sigurd  the 
Dane,  a  thousand  years  before,  had  sailed  past  Carrickmore, 
skirted  the  hidden  menace  of  the  Irons,  and  stood  into  the 
middle  circle  of  the  triple  callipers  to  harry  and  finally  to 
marry  the  maidenhood  of  Dunhallow. 

For  Paris  Asthar  had  come  to  Dunhallow,  accompanied  by  a 
beautiful  young  woman  with  hair  like  beaten  copper,  and 
attended  by  a  gnome  in  yellow  ivory  of  some  inferior  world 
who  was  supposed  to  answer  to  the  name  of  Togo  but  who 
did  not,  because,  so  far  as  Dunhallow  knew,  he  was  speech- 
less. Dunhallow,  with  its  passion  for  baptism,  christened 
him  "The  Master  of  the  Toilet." 

So  far  as  Dunhallow  could  see,  Paris  Asthar  lived  for  his 
toilet.  He  did  not  abate  one  hair  of  his  Piccadilly  present- 
ment but  strolled  round  the  little  town  magnificent  in  shining 
silk  hat,  frock-coat,  and  malacca,  followed  by  crowds  of  beg- 
gars headed  by  Johnny  the  Saint,  who  seemed  to  sprout  from 
the  earth  at  his  passage,  and  distributing  largesse  like  a 
prince  of  the  blood.  The  children,  who  adored  him,  executed 
various  feints  and  devices  to  draw  him  into  Miss  Bluett's 
the  confectioner's,  whence  he  would  issue  with  Togo  at  his 
heels  carrying  two  large  tissue  paper  bags  of  Miss  Bluett's 
bullseyes,  weather-stained,  very  strong,  very  yellow,  and  very 
satisfying. 

Old  Asthar  of  the  grey  stone  house  at  the  top  of  the  square, 
Dunhallow  of  course  knew  well,  as  his  eccentricities  and 
grudging  munificence.  But  Paris  was  a  new  and  better  edition. 

It  was  true  that,  unlike  his  half-sister,  who  was  the  only 
child  of  old  Asthar  by  his  second  marriage,  and  beloved  of 
Dunhallow,  he  had  never  before  been  to  Ireland,  hugging 
London  and  the  continental  cities,  and  it  was  also  true  that 


GHOST-HUNTING  179 

his  appearance  was  nearly  as  foreign  as  that  of  his  attendant. 
But  he  had  the  irresistible  Irish  blood  in  him — Dunhallow 
could  see  that — a  touch  of  the  brogue  that  was  beginning 
to  haunt  the  high,  trumpet-like  tones  like  the  call  of  memory, 
and  when,  finally,  heretic  though  Dunhallow  believed  him  to 
be,  for  in  Ireland  if  a  man  is  not  a  Catholic  he  must  of 
necessity  be  a  Protestant,  he  made  his  way  to  the  Big  Chapel 
at  the  top  of  the  street  of  William  and  Mary,  popularly  known 
as  "The  Street  of  the  Gallows,"  and  said  his  prayers  there, 
Dunhallow  capitulated.  As  Paris  himself  said:  "My  God 
can  be  worshipped  anywhere." 

Finn,  who  was  at  this  time  more  or  less  permanently  in 
Dunhallow  watching  Crux's  interests  at  Black  Rock  at  a 
wage  that  was  a  trifle  less  than  one  of  Crux's  masons,  met 
Asthar  on  his  arrival  one  wet  evening  of  October  and  brought 
him  to  his  friend,  Father  Con,  to  whom  Asthar  gravely 
confessed  that  he  had  come  to  Dunhallow  ghost-hunting, 
addressing  the  reverend  gentleman,  apparently  in  virtue  of 
his  position,  as  "the-ghost-finder-in-chief."  To  "Kitty  the 
Divil,"  he  instantly  made  love.  The  little  thing  was  per- 
plexed, flattered,  and  not  a  little  frightened,  for,  as  she  said 
in  apology  for  her  sex's  weakness — "he  is  a  beautiful  divil." 
However,  he  conducted  his  wooing  with  such  an  air  of 
propriety  that  even  Father  Con  could  only  pretend  to  be 
shocked.  For  the  Father  had  also  capitulated. 

Dunhallow's  only  difficulty  was  Stella  Fay.  It  had  also 
been  that  of  Father  Con  and  his  housekeeper.  Dunhallow 
had  developed  such  a  moral  sensitiveness,  resulting  from  a 
national  concentration  through  the  centuries,  that  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  beautiful  young  woman  with  hair  of  copper  travelling 
with  what  Dunhallow  called  "a  beautiful  man"  and  staying 
with  him  under  the  same  roof,  invited  consideration.  Miss 
O'Shaughnessy  at  "The  Shamrock  of  Ireland,"  a  very  proper 
virgin  in  the  fifties,  had  been  in  two  minds  about  taking  them 
in  (the  big  house  in  the  square  was  at  present  uninhabitable), 
but  within  the  space  of  two  sentences  had  surrendered  bag 
and  baggage,  that  is  to  say  "faith  and  morals,"  to  the  dis- 
tinguished stranger,  whose  father  had  been  one  of  her  best 
friends  and  who  now  was  her  landlord.  And  besides,  hadn't 
Father  Con  opposite  made  them  free  of  the  hearth  of  holiness? 


i8o  GODS 

And  who  should  she  be  to  be  questioning  the  judgment  of 
the  parish  priest? 

"Maybe  the  young  lady  is  a  cousin  or  something,  yer 
honour?"  she  had  said,  wheedling-like.  She  was  despairingly 
anxious  to  make  it  easy  for  him  and  for  her  conscience. 

"No,  no,  my  dear  madam,"  replied  her  guest,  "Miss  Fay 
is  only  a  comrade."  Dunhallow  had  never  heard  the  word 
and  took  it  to  express  a  sort  of  relation,  and  Paris  and  Stella 
on  trust — a  trust  which  was  not  betrayed,  for  even  Dun- 
hallow  could  see  in  a  little  while  that  the  friendship  of  these 
two  had  nothing  more  of  sex  in  it  than  the  friendship  of 
Father  Con  and  his  housekeeper. 

One  of  those  afternoons  of  late  autumn  when  the  gracious 
lady  that  is  Ireland  had  strewed  the  green  of  her  robes  with 
brown  and  gold,  Finn  was  walking  down  the  boreen  near 
the  valley,  when  just  where  the  narrow  lane  turned  under  the 
reddened  hawthorn,  he  saw  a  figure  coming  towards  him 
through  the  golden  shadows.  It  was  a  curious  whip-like  figure 
clad  in  a  tawny  brown  which  blended  with  the  leaves  around, 
and  in  its  hand  it  swung  a  green  leather  cap,  leaving  the  cop- 
per hair  above  to  glow  softly  under  the  last  rays  of  the 
sun  as  though  it  were  on  fire.  With  that  limping  swiftness, 
it  was  on  him  like  a  shadow  before  he  could  collect  himself. 

It  sidled  over  to  the  boy  and  looked  up  slyly  as  it  stood 
under  the  lee  of  one  of  his  great  shoulders.  Then  it  laughed, 
a  little  full  throaty  laugh. 

And  then  Stella  Fay  had  slipped  one  little  warm  hand  along 
his  arm,  leaving  it  to  rest  in  the  crook  of  his  elbow,  con- 
fidingly. 

"I  have  come  to  see  you  ....  Finn,"  she  added  after 
a  little  pause,  using  his  Christian  name  for  the  first  time. 
She  stole  a  look  upwards  at  him,  the  boy  standing  there  con- 
fused and  bareheaded,  for  he  had  got  into  the  way  of  going 
hatless. 

"You  know  I  thought  you  were  a  loup-garou,  with  that 
great  mop  of  hair  standing  back  against  the  evening  sky. 
"Now  I  am  done  for,"  I  said.  She  laughed  a  little  delicious 
laugh.  "He  will  eat  me  up  alive,  this  great  monster  of  the 
twilight.  .  .  .  Will  you  eat  me?"  She  looked  at  him  pro- 
vokingly  and  pressed  his  arm  ever  so  little. 

He  felt  ridiculous.    The  girl  with  the  copper  hair  had  always 


GHOST-HUNTING  181 

made  him  feel  a  little  ridiculous — but  yet  satisfied.  Not  like 
Deirdre  Asthar,  who  never  made  him  ridiculous — only  con- 
temptible. For  the  life  of  him  he  could  not  speak,  but  stood 
there  with  the  sweat  starting  out  where  the  thicket  of  his 
hair  met  his  forehead.  The  perfume  of  the  girl's  body,  evan- 
escent, seemed  to  pass  through  him.  He  had,  as  always,  a 
consciousness  of  the  warmth  of  her  body  with  its  penetration. 
The  chill  of  the  autumn  air  only  seemed  to  quicken  this 
almost  painful  consciousness  of  her  physical  presence. 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  she  went  on.  "I'm  not  going  to  eat 
you  ....  or  to  kiss  you.  Next  time,  it  is  you  who 
shall  kiss  me  ....  if  I  will.  .  .  .  Perhaps  I  won't." 
She  laughed  again. 

They  had  met  a  few  yards  from  where  the  boreen  twisted 
sharply.  Finn,  looking  over  the  beautiful  head,  saw  another 
figure  in  the  deepening  shadows  at  the  turning.  He  sprang 
away  from  the  girl,  who  started,  and  then  there  came  that 
little  characteristic  frown  between  the  eyes  which  Finn  knew 
so  well  as  she  saw  Deirdre  Asthar  coming  towards  them. 

Had  she  seen  them?  He  had  nothing  of  which  to  be 
ashamed,  but  in  Stella  Fay's  company  he  always  had  an  ap- 
prehension of  guilt,  of  uneasiness.  But  the  evening  was  dark 
and  the  great  hawthorn  had  shadowed  them.  Only  he 
flushed  heavily  as  he  saw  the  starry  eyes  of  the  girl  look  first 
at  him  and  then  at  Stella  Fay. 

"How  are  you,  Deirdre?"  the  girl  asked  with  a  little  smooth 
laugh.  "You  see  I've  come  over  with  Paris  as  we  promised. 
We're  ghost-hunting  and  are  coming  to  stay  at  your  House 
of  Dreams." 

Deirdre  was  as  always  self-possessed.  It  was  one  of  the 
things  that  irritated  Finn.  She  shook  hands  with  the  other 
girl,  but  to  Finn  it  came  as  the  salute  of  two  rapier  players 
before  they  engage.  She  made  some  indifferent  reply  and 
the  three  walked  up  to  the  house,  Deirdre  leaving  them  as 
they  entered  the  swinging  gates. 

Mrs.  O'Hara  stood  in  the  door  to  receive  them.  She 
looked  in  that  shrewd  searching  way  at  Stella  Fay,  the  eyes 
hardened  a  trifle  and  then  lit  up  in  the  way  which  Finn  knew. 
For  at  the  same  moment  the  girl  had  gone  up  to  her  in  that 
frank  boyish  way  she  so  often  showed  to  women  and  had 


182  GODS 

put  up  one  slender  arm  to  draw  to  her  the  white  head  which 
she  kissed. 

"I  know  all  about  you,  Mrs.  O'Hara,  from  Mr.  Fontaine, 
who  has  been  deafening  us  with  your  praises  over  there — " 
she  swept  a  free  arm  out  behind  her.  "You  know,  my  mother 
died  when  I  was  born — she  was  partly  French  and  partly 
Irish,"  she  whispered  half  in  pleading  half  in  apology  for 
her  caress  as  she  snuggled  her  well-formed  compact  head 
against  the  shoulder  of  the  woman  before  her. 

The  soft  firm  arm  stole  up  behind  her  and  caressed  the 
hair,  once,  twice,  and  pressed  the  head  to  her  breast.  And 
then  she  had  taken  them  into  the  house. 

Paris  came  during  the  evening,  driving  magnificently  upon 
a  side-car  up  a  boreen  where  no  such  thing  had  ever  before 
rolled  and  expanding  upon  the  beauties  of  the  sunset  to 
Johnny  the  Saint,  whose  coat-tail  as  usual  was  hanging  over 
the  wheel  at  the  rear.  He  was  followed  by  a  pack  animal, 
one  of  the  donkeys  which  shared  Black  Rock  with  its  humans, 
piled  high  with  trunks  and  bags  under  which  it  nearly  dis- 
appeared though  urged  on  from  the  rear  by  Lanty,  the  idiot 
boy.  Togo  perched  before  Johnny  and,  wrapped  to  the  nose 
in  a  shawl  like  a  little  yellow  ape,  showed  to  a  strange  world 
two  carraway  seeds  of  eyes  which  saw  everything  and  nothing. 

Togo  performing  his  usual  magic,  they  were  installed  by 
ten  o'clock,  a  great  fire  burning  in  Asthar's  bedroom  as  in 
that  of  Stella  Fay,  the  trunks  and  bags  unpacked,  and  Togo 
himself  stowed  away  in  the  loft  in  a  biscuit  crate  in  which, 
when  little  Patsey  for  purposes  of  his  own  went  to  look  at 
him  in  the  dawn  of  the  next  morning,  he  looked  like  a  doll  in 
a  coffin. 

To  Finn's  surprise,  things  had  gone  smoothly.  He  did  not 
know  why  he  had  expected  trouble,  but,  although  he  had 
never  seen  them  quarrel,  it  had  always  seemed  to  him  that 
there  was  something  of  secret  antagonism  between  Deirdre 
and  Stella.  It  seemed  to  him,  innocent  though  he  was,  that 
Deirdre  in  some  hidden  way  was  always  watching  the  other 
girl.  He  would  sometimes  catch  that  strange  veiled  glance 
that  puzzled  him.  But  what  was  there  to  watch? 

Deirdre,  in  these  days  when  Paris  and  Stella  went  what 
they  called  "ghost-hunting"  in  the  hills  and  raths  where  their 
shadows  were  always  frightening  belated  countrymen,  was 


GHOST-HUNTING  183 

terribly  wilful.  Even  to  Mrs.  O'Hara  she  was  at  times  irri- 
table, though  afterwards  she  would  always  go  up  to  her 
and  kiss  her  warmly,  secretly.  And  sometimes  she  would  sit 
on  the  floor  and  rest  the  bronzed  tangle  of  her  hair  in  the 
lap  of  the  white-haired  woman  as  she  sat  turning  the  blower 
softly  on  the  little  three-legged  stool  in  the  kitchen,  where  they 
all  liked  to  come  in  the  evenings. 

To  Finn  it  was  as  though  Stella  also  watched  the  other, 
although  he  had  never  once  caught  a  glance  from  her.  She 
had  a  habit  of  curling  that  snaky  body  of  hers  into  dark 
corners  from  where  they  would  see  the  glowing  tip  of  her 
cigarette  as  it  came  and  went,  and  though  Finn  could  not  see 
the  eyes,  he  could  feel  them — those  grey  black-centred  eyes, 
and  the  swelling  nostrils,  and  the  red  lips  with  the  slender 
scented  cigarette  hanging  between  them.  Mrs.  O'Hara,  who 
seemed  to  understand  all  things,  did  not  protest  at  the  cig- 
arettes, although  Black  Rock,  which  had  surrendered  to  "The 
Girl  with  the  Burning  Hair,"  as  it  called  her  in  the  Irish, 
until  her  advent  had  no  doubts  upon  the  immorality  of  fem- 
inine smoking,  except  in  the  form  of  a  black  cutty  as  the  solace 
of  age.  For  Black  Rock,  which  knew  men  and  women  by  some 
quality  rather  than  by  name  had  baptised  Stella  Fay  after 
their  beloved  Caolte,  the  chief  of  the  fairies,  whose  hair  seemed 
to  flame  on  his  head  as  he  rode  across  the  hedges  and  ditches 
in  the  dusk  of  the  crescent  moon. 

And  then,  one  evening  when  Paris,  now  in  a  soft  wide-awake 
in  which  he  looked  inexpressibly  bizarre,  like  some  Assyrian 
bandit  who  had  fallen  into  the  twentieth  century,  had  re- 
turned from  the  old  fort  on  the  hill  with  Stella,  the  storm 
broke. 

Stella  had  the  way  of  speaking  about  her  ghosts  and  creepi- 
nesses  as  though  they  were  real  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood 
which  all  the  world  acknowledged.  This  evening,  after  she 
had  bathed  and  dressed — for  summer  and  winter  she  swam 
in  green  waters  whenever  she  got  the  chance,  astonishing  by 
her  feats  a  people  who,  fearless  on  the  water,  would  no  more 
have  thought  of  bathing  in  it  than  of  bathing  in  fire — she 
lay  full  length  before  the  lighted  turf  upon  a  rug  made  of  the 
skins  of  seals  which  once  had  gambolled  in  the  cove  below. 
In  a  dress  of  some  shining  green  stuff,  she  looked  like  some 


1 84  GODS 

sinuous  creature,  half  mortal,  half  mermaid,  who  had  come 
up  from  the  depths  to  lie  on  the  hearths  of  men. 

"Ellen  Masters,"  she  said  irrelevantly.  "She  told  us  to  come 
to  Ireland  for  our  ghost-hunting — she  said  that  Ireland  was 
a  spirit-haunted  land.  She  is  an  Irishwoman  herself.  She 
knows  every  spirit  'twixt  here  and  India.  She  was 
telling  us  one  day  how  she  first  became  a  Universalist.  She 
had  been  a  terrible  unbeliever  and  had  been  writing  for 
those  dreadful  Rationalist  Thinkers  .  .  .  .  '  and  so 
Stella  Fay  had  wandered  into  the  story  of  the  famous  Uni- 
versalist leader's  conversion. 

Paris  Asthar  listened  with  that  large  indulgence  which  was 
his  own.  Mrs.  O'Hara  turned  the  wheel  softly.  Little  Patsey 
dreamed  of  God  knows  what  in  the  corner.  But  Deirdre  on 
the  other  side  of  the  fire,  tautened. 

"Universalism,"  she  said.  "That  is  nonsense."  There  was 
a  finality  about  the  utterance  that  was  irritating — perhaps 
meant  to  be  so. 

The  girl  on  the  sealskins  flashed  a  glance  at  her.  Finn 
caught  it  as  it  passed  like  a  weaver's  shuttle. 

"You  know,"  she  continued,  "no  intelligent  man  or  woman 
could  really  believe  in  those  silly  stories  of  saints  and  devils 
and  angels.  There  are  no  such  things.  Or,  if  there  are,"  she 
went  on,  a  trifle  illogical,  "the  people  who  pretend  to  wor- 
ship them  have  made  them  ridiculous.  That  sort  of  thing 
is  a  cult — the  Ellen  Masters  cult.  A  cult  of  short-haired  wom- 
en and  long-haired  men.  .  .  ." 

"I  thought  you  had  short  hair,  dear,"  said  the  girl  on 
the  sealskins,  lazily. 

Deirdre  ignored  her.  "All  these  things  are  cults  with  labels. 
They  even  try  to  label  the  Almighty  and  put  him  up  in  bot- 
tles. These  people  are  merely  ridiculous.  They  know  nothing 
of  life.  They  know  nothing  of  reality.  Warm  flesh  and  red 
blood  and  star-dust — those  are  the  real  things  of  living." 

"Do  you  know  much  about  life?"  asked  the  other  girl. 
"I  thought  you  prided  yourself  upon  not  knowing  anything 
about  reality." 

Paris  chuckled.  "Got  you  there,  Deirdre,"  he  said,  with 
splendid  male  detachment. 

"Such  things,"  said  Deirdre,  losing  her  temper  a  little,  "are 


GHOST-HUNTING  185 

no   more   real   than,   than     ....     than   Patsey's   fairies 
.     .     .     .     "  and  she  smiled  a  little  to  the  boy. 

To  Finn  it  seemed  on  a  par  with  all  those  other  contradic- 
tions inherent  in  existence.  Deirdre,  he  should  have  ex- 
pected to  be  the  Universalist,  and  the  poisonous  sneering  girl 
on  the  rug,  the  sceptic.  To  him,  Deirdre  Asthar  always  sneered 
at  everything  religious  whilst  Stella  Fay  was  ardent,  almost 
excessive,  in  her  expression  of  religious  feelings.  He  felt 
himself  with  Stella  Fay,  for  Ireland  had  been  doing  her  work 
on  him,  driving  him  away  from  his  materialism  or,  rather, 
dissolving  it.  And  yet  Deirdre,  in  some  queer,  elusive  way, 
seemed  to  have  the  heart  of  things.  There  were  things  in 
life  he  could  not  reconcile. 

There  was  for  example  that  patriotism  of  Deirdre's  which 
seemed  to  burn  with  a  lambent  flame  that  made  it  a  faith, 
whilst  Stella  Fay  sneered  at  all  love  of  country.  She  said 
her  country  was  the  men  and  women  throughout  the  world 
who  cared  for  the  things  that  she  cared  for,  and  once  Paris 
Asthar  had  interfered  to  say  that  life  was  tending  more  and 
more  to  divide  itself,  not  by  race,  not  by  religion,  but  by 
class.  That  was  indeed  what  the  Reverend  John  Durring 
and  Jock  MacAdam  had  also  said,  but  Asthar  hated  Social- 
ism, at  which  he  laughed  good-humouredly. 

More  and  more  it  seemed  to  Finn  that  people  were  always 
saying  the  same  thing  in  different  words  as  though  some  spirit 
of  synthesis  were  at  work  in  the  world  to  reconcile  the  irre- 
concileable. 

But  Asthar,  lolling  luxuriously  upon  an  old  settle  over  which 
Togo,  flitting  in  and  out,  had  thrown  a  splendid  bearskin 
rug,  looking  on  half-cynical  and  half-amused  at  a  struggle  in 
which  two  invisible  antagonists  seemed  to  be  grappling,  glanced 
across  at  little  Patsey. 

"Do  you  hear  that,  Patsey?"  he  asked  challengingly. 

"Hear  what,  Mr.  Asthar?"  asked  the  boy. 

"Why,  here's  Miss  Deirdre  telling  Miss  Fay  that  her  spirits 
have  no  more  existence  than  your  fairies." 

The  boy  looked  wonderingly  at  the  big  man. 

"Sure  there  are  good  spirits  and  bad  spirits,"  he  said. 
"Doesn't  everyone  know  that?  I  don't  know  Miss  Stella's 
spirits.  Maybe  they're  the  bad.  .  .  ."  He  looked  so  pen- 


i86  GODS 

etratingly  at  the  girl  that  Paris  gave  vent  to  a  shout  of 
laughter. 

"And  what  are  mine,"  he  asked  patronisingly. 

The  little  boy  gazed  at  him  with  that  far  away  look. 
"Faith  I  wouldn't  be  surprised  if  they  were  queer  hairy  scaly 
divils  with  horns  and  a  tail,"  he  said,  solemnly.  "There  are 
two  kinds — the  smooth  wans  and  the  scaly  wans." 

"And  what  are  'the  good  people,'  Patsey?"  asked  Stella. 

"They're  betwixt  and  between.  Sure  they're  good  and  bad — 
they're  very  like  us,"  he  said  wistfully.  "Sure  wan  time  they 
were  human  beings  that  thought  they  knew  as  much  as  spirits, 
till  the  wrath  of  God  wouldn't  let  them  live  above  the  earth 
any  longer — but  by  nights  they  do  be  rushin'  out  again  like 
them  Niamh  and  Caolte  that  Miss  Deirdre  do  be  singin'  of. 
'Twas  the  pride  of  the  head  they  had — they  thought  they 
knew  everything  by  understanding  it,  until  in  the  long  last 
they  didn't  even  believe  in  God — and  that  was  why  God 
punished  them." 

"But,  Patsey,  are  there  no  others?"  asked  Stella. 

"Indeed  and  there  are.  There  are  the  angels  of  light — 
that  do  be  hatin'  and  fightin'  with  the  bad  wans.  They're  my 
spirits,"  he  added  proudly. 

"No,  Patsey,  they're  not  the  best,"  said  Paris  Asthar  with 
a  strange  little  note  of  earnestness  and  hostility  stealing  into 
his  voice.  "The  fairies  are  the  best.  Wouldn't  you  rather 
ride  down  the  wind  with  Niamh  calling  'Come- away!'  and 
with  Caolte  of  the  Burning  Hair  over  the  hills  and  valleys, 
peeping  into  the  hearts  of  men  and  perhaps  stealing  away  their 
souls,  than  be  up  there  flying  about  doing  nothing  except 
playing  on  harps?"  He  lifted  himself  a  trifle  to  look  at  the 
boy. 

"Indeed  and  I  wouldn't,"  said  Patsey.  "I  love  'the  good 
people,'  only  .  .  ."  he  paused  a  little  doubtful,  "only 
they'll  only  live  a  thousand  years  they  do  be  sayin' — but 
.  .  .  .  but.  .  .  .  Maybe  they  also  can  get  to  heaven." 
He  turned  his  eyes  wistful  towards  Mrs.  O'Hara.  "Don't  you 
think  so,  Granny?  .  .  .  .  I  do  be  sorry  for  them  and 
I  do  be  sayin'  prayers  for  them." 

"That's  true  for  the  child,"  interposed  Mrs.  O'Hara.  "He 
has  always  the  queer  fancies  and  has  always  said  his  prayers 
for  {the  good  people'  since  he  was  so  high."  She  held  her 


GHOST-HUNTING  187 

hand  out  to  measure.  "Annie  couldn't  break  him  of  it  nor 
could  Father  Hennessey  himself." 

"Ah,  Father  Hennessey  doesn't  know  anything  about  it," 
said  the  boy  in  an  old-world  voice  that  made  them  all  laugh. 
"It  is  Father  Con  over  there  in  Dunhallow  that  has  the  under- 
standing. Fairies  have  souls."  They  saw  him  cross  himself 
in  the  glow  of  the  fire. 

"Patsey,"  said  Asthar  lightly,  "you  ought  to  know  my  gods. 
They  are  fine  fellows.  They  give  money  and  power  over  men. 
They  can  give  you  a  kingdom.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  maybe  like  the  Divil  showed  our  Blessed  Lord  when 
he  took  him  up  in  the  high  mountain,"  said  the  child  like 
a  very  old  and  cunning  man.  "And  what  would  they  be 
wantin'  me  to  swop  with  them?  Tell  me  that." 

"They  want  nothing  except  yourself,  Patsey,"  said  Asthar, 
lifting  himself  still  more.  "They  only  ask  whole-souled  de- 
votion— you  give  them  your  little  self — they  give  you  the 
big  world."  And  now  Asthar  was  curiously  earnest,  with 
Mrs.  O'Hara  looking  hard  at  him. 

"You  can  kape  them,  Mr.  Asthar,"  said  the  boy,  "for  me. 
I'm  in  the  hands  of  God." 

"But  God  is  over  all,"  said  Paris  Asthar  who  now  seemed 
to  be  joining  issue  with  the  little  child  before  him,  grappling 
with  him.  And  to  Finn,  it  seemed  that  up  there  the  great 
shadows  flickering  on  walls  and  ceiling  were  also  grappling 
together.  "God  is  the  God  of  Power,"  he  said. 

"No,  he  isn't,'  said  the  child.  "It  is  the  God  of  Love  that 
he  is.  .  .  ." 

"That's  a  lie,  Patsey,"  said  the  big  man,  who  for  the  first 
time  in  Finn's  knowledge  seemed  to  show  a  vein  of  temper. 
It  astonished  him,  as  did  the  heavy  folds  which  had  seemed 
to  come  up  under  the  fire-shadows  on  the  smooth  of  the  face 
as  though  the  stuff  behind  were  crumbling.  But  Stella  was 
watching  Asthar  closely  with  that  wild,  slant-eyed  look  which 
gave  to  her  something  un-human. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Asthar,  'tis  ashamed  of  yourself  you  ought  to  be, 
tryin'  to  seduce  the  poor  child,"  said  Mrs.  O'Hara  half  in 
fun  and  half  in  anger.  "  'Tis  a  way  wid  you  ye  have,  but 
ye  shan't  get  hold  of  Annie's  Patsey." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  O'Hara,  don't  be  angry  with  me,  please."  The 
man  lifted  himself  a  little  like  a  great  cat  and  made  a  bow 


i88  GODS 

to  the  old  lady  where  she  sat  by  the  wheel.  "Isn't  it  only  a 
little  bout  of  words  we're  havin'  now."  He  put  on  the  brogue 
in  the  way  that  he  knew  so  well  how  to  do,  until  it  came 
mellifluous  from  his  lips.  She  smiled  up  at  him. 

"What  are  your  fairies  like?"  Paris  asked. 

But  the  boy  would  not  answer  him.  He  looked  at  him  with 
wide-eyed,  frightened  suspicion.  And  in  spite  of  all  Paris 
Asthar's  blandishments,  he  could  not  get  him  again  to  speak. 

Deirdre  through  all  this  had  sat  silent  in  the  old  oak  chair 
that  was  her  favourite,  her  feet  tucked  up  under  her.  Finn 
had  been  watching  her.  And  it  was  torment  to  him.  For 
every  day  that  went  he  knew  that  this  girl  had  got  into  his 
veins  like  a  fire.  It  was  since  that  day  with  little  Paudeen 
on  the  roadside.  It  was  not  when  she  had  looked  at  him, 
but  when  the  hair  on  her  neck  had  parted  to  show  the  fair 
white  skin  beneath  as  she  stooped  over  Paudeen.  He  would 
have  liked  to  think  that  it  had  come  from  her  look — but  it 
really  came  from  that  other  thing. 

It  was  not  that  he  thought  of  her  thinking  of  him.  His 
feeling  for  her  was  such  that  even  to  tell  her  or  to  think 
of  return  made  it  nothing.  If  it  were  love — and  it  seemed 
to  him  sometimes  to  be  hate  or  to  hold  hate  in  its  heart — it 
was  he  told  himself,  only  the  love  of  a  boy — with  something 
of  the  stars  in  it. 

For  in  a  way,  even,  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  her,  for  he 
felt  her  remote  as  the  stars  themselves.  But  there  was  some- 
thing about  this  girl  that  made  him  deeply,  painfully  conscious 
of  himself — ashamed  of  his  poverty,  of  the  meanness  of  his 
clothes.  Stella  Fay  never  made  him  feel  like  that. 

Looking  at  Stella,  as  she  lay  on  the  rug,  she  seemed  to 
come  between  him  and  the  girl  in  the  chair  like  a  shimmer- 
ing veil  that  changed  and  dazzled.  It  made  Deirdre  Asthar 
remote — almost  non-existent.  To  him,  the  girl  on  the  rug, 
as  he  had  discovered,  was  desire  itself,  with  something  un- 
earthly, wild-eyed,  but  altogether  desirably  human  as  when 
spirits  love  mortals.  Between  her  and  that  other  girl  there  was 
a  gulf  intangible,  something  that  could  never  be  bridged. 

His  head  filled  with  the  fancies  of  hot  passion  as  he  looked, 
and  then  his  eye  lifted  to  catch  a  fleeting  glance  from  Deirdre 
and  for  a  great  shame  to  come  to  him. 

Finn,  looking  a  trifle  wide,  caught  something  that  flitted 


GHOST-HUNTING  189 

across  the  shadows  thrown  from  the  flames.  The  little  ivory 
face  had  seemed  to  catch  a  sudden  blazing  of  the  turf  and  at 
the  same  moment  there  flashed  upon  the  boy's  brain  as  though 
it  had  been  photographed  there,  the  grain  carved  on  the 
ivory. 

It  was  Togo  going  up  to  his  coffin-bed  in  the  loft  above. 


XVIII 

PAUDEEN 

Through  all  this  time  Finn  tried  to  write,  but  between  the 
glowing  cloud  of  his  inspiration  and  the  written  page  there 
waved  fleetingly  a  strand  of  Stella's  burnished  hair,  through  the 
meshes  of  which  Deirdre's  green  eyes,  serene,  assured,  would 
sometimes  search  for  him.  More  than  ever  was  he  like  that 
bait  in  the  deeps  under  Carrickmore  torn  hither  and  thither 
by  desire  and  its  opposite.  But  what  was  its  opposite? 

The  process  of  consolidation  which  had  been  shaping  the 
mind  and  body  of  Finn  Fontaine  seemed  to  have  reached  a 
period.  He  might  go  forward,  but  he  might  once  more  be 
flung  into  the  melting  pot  of  doubt  as  he  had  so  often  been 
before.  Development,  like  all  other  things,  had  its  method. 
Rearrangement  seemed  to  be  its  law.  Retrogression  seemed  to 
be  an  intrinsic  of  progress. 

Not  that  he  realised  this  consciously.  The  very  condition 
of  his  evolution  was  partial  unconsciousness.  But  down 
there  in  the  unconscious  deeps  he  was  fighting  upwards 
towards  consciousness  as  drowning  men  fight  upwards  to  the 
light — as  he  had  been  fighting  since  that  June  day  at  reading 
and  prayer  in  the  little  room  at  Forestford  when  he  had  asked 
himself:  "God?  Who  was  God?  Was  He?" 

Better  an  eternity  of  painful  consciousness  than  the  bestial 
sleep  of  dreamless  extinction.  He  had  heard  there  were  people 
who  desired  such  extinction  as  the  end  of  life — he  did  not 
believe  it — it  seemed  incredible,  meaningless. 

Unconscious  though  he  was,  he  now  knew,  in  some  blind 
way,  that  consciousness  was  the  thing  for  which  he  had  to 
fight — that  it  was  perhaps  the  whole  end  of  life,  that  it  was 
perhaps  the  supreme  attribute  of  divinity.  For  the  more  he 
thought  of  it,  the  more  life  as  it  was  lived  about  him  came  as 
a  nightmare  of  unconsciousness  and  incoherency,  without  cor- 
relation or  ultimate.  The  incoherency  of  Crux  as  of  the  people 

190 


PAUDEEN  191 

at  home — of  the  parish  church  parson  as  of  the  Bishop  of 
Whitechapel — of  the  little  molluscous  middle-class  of  the 
Forestford  suburb,  which  ebbed  to  and  fro  morning  and  evening 
to  and  from  the  city,  with  as  much  direction  and  conscious- 
ness of  their  environment  and  reason  for  existence  as  that 
shoal  of  jelly-fish  he  had  once  seen  stream  past  the  Black 
Rock  pier — all  this  seemed  to  him  the  outstanding  fact  of 
life.  But  it  never  actively  came  to  him  that  just  because  he 
himself  was  becoming  conscious  this  was  so. 

At  first  he  had  believed  as  a  matter  of  course  that  all  these 
people  about  him  were  as  much  concerned  about  this  thing 
as  he  and  that  somewhere  or  somehow  they  all  had  a  secret 
philosophy  of  life,  which  to  him  was  as  much  an  essential 
of  existence  as  heart  or  brain,  though  he  did  not  call  it 
"philosophy,"  he  called  it  "a  reason  for  life."  Then  he  had 
tried  to  believe  they  had  it,  suppressing  his  own  intuitions 
to  the  contrary.  Finally,  wavering  between  this  belief  and 
attempt  to  believe,  he  had  reached  the  desolating  conclusion 
that  the  great  mass  about  him,  even  sometimes  his  dearest 
and  best,  were  as  blindly  unconscious  of  any  meaning  under- 
lying life  and  of  their  relation  to  it  and  to  one  another  as  the 
bats  that  hung  in  the  belfry  of  the  old  chapel,  for  which 
the  twilight  was  necessary  to  vision  because  they  could  not 
bear  the  light.  And  all  this  made  him  miserable — for  it  seemed 
to  cut  him  off  from  his  fellows. 

This  lack  of  continuity,  of  realisation,  of  logic — for  it  came 
to  him  as  all  three — appalled  and  irritated.  It  was  always 
thrusting  itself  upon  him  and  in  a  thousand  ways.  It  was 
not  only  that  his  father  left  his  religion  behind  him  each  day 
when  he  went  upon  his  pilgrimages  with  the  coals,  about 
which  he  told,  and  conscientiously,  any  lie  necessary  to  their 
sale — nor  that  Crux,  despite  the  Church  in  the  Fifth  Avenue, 
trafficked  just  as  conscientiously  (he  had  to  admit  it)  in  flesh 
and  blood  in  order  to  keep  up  his  profits.  It  was  in  the  sneer 
of  a  noble  girl  like  Deirdre  Asthar  at  the  grey-faced  army  of 
hunger  that  day  upon  the  Embankment  as  it  lay  in  the  con- 
trast of  the  humanity  of  a  Father  Con  and  his  indifference 
to  the  poverty  about  him.  It  showed  itself  in  the  great- 
hearted fishermen  of  Black  Rock  who,  so  tender  to  children, 
would  put  cruel  loads  upon  their  small  donkeys  and  beat  them 
unmercifully  when  they  faltered,  or  on  St.  Stephen's  Day  when 


192  GODS 

they  would  kill  a  little  wren  for  the  pleasure  of  hanging  it 
in  a  gaily-streamered  bush. 

Men,  with  that  intense  locality  of  the  human  being,  pigeon- 
holed their  consciences  as  their  deeds,  divorcing  religion  from 
action,  politics  from  faith,  business  from  belief,  and,  above  all, 
the  individual  from  the  mass.  Each  seemed  to  be  fighting 
blindly  for  himself.  Crux  fought  for  his  profits.  His  father 
for  his  little  house.  The  Bishop  of  Whitechapel  for  his 
Church.  None  of  them  fought  for  the  world  or  realised  them- 
selves as  citizens  of  that  world.  The  world  stood  for  them 
as  an  extra-ordinary  phenomenon  in  which  they  had  no  share, 
into  which  they  had  been  chance-flung. 

It  was  not  that  he  himself  was  always  or  altogether  clear 
as  to  what  this  consciousness  meant.  But  he  knew  it  when 
he  met  it  and  the  people  who  had  it.  His  father  and  mother 
and  aunts,  as  those  little  middle-class  people  in  the  houses  of 
Forestford,  as  the  Titterlings — all  these  belonged  to  the  great 
army  of  the  blind  or  unconscious.  But  Paris  Asthar  and 
Father  Lestrange  had  consciousness,  as  had  Thrum  and  Lan- 
thorn — each  in  his  particular  way.  They  had  not  all  the  same 
quality  of  consciousness,  but  they  were  "conscious." 

But  Deirdre  Asthar,  for  all  her  serenity  and  a  certain  dis- 
tinctiveness  which  he  thought  of  as  nobility,  was  uncon- 
scious— Stella  Fay,  conscious.  Some  of  the  finest  souls  he 
had  met,  like  Mrs.  O'Hara  and  Patsey  and  Father  Con — 
all  these  were  of  the  unconscious.  And  all  this  again  threw 
him  into  despair.  Life  apparently  had  no  rules,  although  it 
had  laws.  Life  was  illogical.  It  was  the  worst  thing  he  could 
say  of  it. 

This  consciousness  might  be  circumscribed  or  it  might  be 
broad,  but  it  always  had  the  same  distinguishing  quality — 
the  quality,  not  of  assuredness — every  Catholic  in  Black  Rock 
was  assured — which  was  a  quality  of  faith,  but  of  realisation 
and  logic.  The  Jesuit,  like  Asthar,  knew  exactly  his  relation 
to  the  phenomena  which  surrounded  him,  though  the  realisa- 
tion of  each  differed  vitally  from  that  of  the  other.  But 
neither  of  these  men  were  bait  in  deep  waters,  flashing  blind, 
unconscious,  from  side  to  side  under  the  urge  of  active  de- 
terminative powers.  They  were  themselves  of  these  directing 
powers.  Yet  Crux  directed,  and  yet  he  was  as  much  a  slave 


PAUDEEN  193 

to  the  machine  of  business  and  as  unconscious  of  its  meaning 
or  end  as  any  of  the  pound  a  week  cogs  in  his  offices. 

Perhaps  consciousness  was  the  magic  skein  in  the  forest 
of  life.  A  tiny,  almost  invisible,  red  cord  which  one  might 
miss  through  a  hundred  existences  and  stumble  upon  blindly 
in  one.  But  a  cord  that  correlated  everything,  that  showed 
the  way  and  the  meaning  of  the  maze.  Sometimes  he  had 
thought  he  had  found  it,  had  begun  about  it  to  construct  his 
cosmos — which  had  then  once  more  fallen  to  pieces  under  the 
impact  of  uncontrollable  and  unreasonable  forces  hurtling  out 
of  the  unknown. 

One  thing  alone  kept  him  from  ultimate  despair — those 
strange  exaltations  which  passed  through  him  from  some  cen- 
tral universal  power,  filling  him  with  an  ecstasy  to  life  as 
though  some  centre  of  dynamic-power  were  feeding  him  with 
vitality.  He  could  almost  say  when  he  was  in  pulsing  com- 
munication with  this  source  of  energy  and  when  the  communi- 
cation was  broken. 

Not  that  Finn  Fontaine  was  mystic  or  dreamer  only.  He 
could  be  very  physical,  with  strong  tastes  in  food  and  drink 
and  exercise.  And  these  exaltations  could  come  to  him  at 
the  most  untoward  moments,  sometimes  at  the  most  ordi- 
nary moments — after  a  full  meal  as  easily  as  when  looking  at 
the  sunsets  of  calm  seas  under  Carrickmore — under  the  in- 
cense of  Stella  Fay's  physical  presence  as  at  the  sight  of  the 
blue  flame  that  sometimes  burned  in  the  eye  of  the  girl  who 
was  her  opposite. 

And  now  these  forces  were  at  work  upon  his  newly  fledged 
logic.  That  day  when  the  sunlight  flashing  through  the  mists 
upon  the  neck  of  the  girl  bending  over  little  Paudeen  had 
seemed  to  make  all  things  plain — had  brought  Deirdre  Asthar 
remotely  near  in  one  warm  passionate  moment  of  conscious- 
ness— and  had  left  all  things  outside  her  unreal  and  non- 
existent. Then  had  come  the  day  in  the  boreen  when  Stella 
Fay's  hand  laid  upon  his  arm  had  seemed  to  burn  itself  into 
his  veins  .  .  .  and  that  evening  before  the  fire  when  Deirdre 
had  surprised  him  in  a  moment  when  flesh  and  blood  seemed 
the  only  real  and  the  girl  with  the  serene  eyes  remote  as  a 
solitary  light  upon  lofty  dusk-enshrouded  battlements. 

For  these  two  girls  stood  for  him  dimly  as  the  symbols 
for  two  opposite  sets  of  forces,  as  they  themselves  were  oppo- 


194  GODS 

site.  Their  opposition  showed  itself  in  a  hundred  ways,  not 
only  in  such  intangibilities  as  speech  as  in  the  more  concrete 
things  of  aversion  and  expression.  About  Stella  Fay  there  was 
something  elemental,  as  in  her  love  for  losing  herself  in  the 
green  waters  under  Carrickmore — about  Deirdre  Asthar  some- 
thing adorably  earthly  and  human  as  in  her  dread  for  those 
same  waters  which  from  childhood  she  had  always  feared. 
And  yet  it  was  that  elemental  girl  who  touched  his  senses, 
and  that  other  who  was  so  far  away. 

Then  had  come  the  scoffing  of  Deirdre  at  those  things  of 
the  Beyond  that  were  coming  closer  to  him  in  the  mists  of 
Ireland — and  with  it  their  revealing  by  that  other  being  of 
warm  flesh  and  blood  who  yet  seemed  to  live  in  other  worlds. 
The  breach  that  had  first  definitely  shown  itself  that  day  of  the 
Embankment  when  Deirdre  had  looked  in  cold  contempt 
upon  that  mob  of  pinched  grey  faces — the  look  that  had  made 
him  hate  her — was  now  widening  every  day,  although  he  had 
to  confess  that  it  was  a  breach  which  existed  only  in  his 
imagination,  for  he  had  never  been  near  Deirdre  Asthar. 
But  there  would  be  moments  when  a  glance  from  those 
starry  eyes  would  set  him  aflame  and  make  all  else,  including 
Stella,  of  no  account. 

For  indeed,  however  ridiculous  and  helpless  it  seemed,  he 
was  deeply  in  love  with  Paris  Asthar's  sister,  even  though  he 
sometimes  hated  her.  And  he  was  as  deeply  conscious  of  his 
inconstancy  and  shame. 

It  was  here  that  little  Paudeen  had  stepped  in  once  more 
to  resolve  his  doubts  and  to  put  the  last  touches  to  the  de- 
struction of  the  world  he  had  begun  to  build  about  himself 
that  day  by  the  roadside. 

He  had  been  down  at  the  curing  sheds  one  day  of  Decem- 
ber when  the  men  and  boats  were  all  out  at  sea  and  the  sun 
shone  down  on  the  icy  waters  of  the  bay.  It  had  come  to 
him  as  from  a  great  distance — the  voice  from  the  sea.  And 
so  he  had  run  to  the  end  of  the  pier  to  find  standing  there 
Deirdre  Asthar,  a  new  Deirdre,  her  hands  clasped  in  agony, 
looking  down  helpless  and  frightened  into  the  water  in  which 
something  struggled  sluggishly.  By  her  side  the  woman  they 
had  met  that  day  by  the  roadside,  motionless,  stared  into 
the  waters. 

Then  he  saw  the  little  face  turn  upwards  in  the  tides  which 


PAUDEEN  195 

swirled  furiously  past  the  nose  of  the  pier,  bare  even  of  a 
rope,  sporting  wanton  with  their  prey  before  dragging  it  under. 

The  boy  who,  for  all  that  splendid  frame,  could  not  swim, 
standing  there  angry,  helpless,  with  the  consciousness  of 
futility,  had  called  to  the  girl  who,  for  all  her  dread  of 
deep  waters,  could  swim,  to  save  him,  and  had  heard  the  re- 
ply given  with  a  new  humility  in  the  proud  eyes.  "I  am 
afraid!" 

In  the  cold  sunlight  something  had  run  past  them  and 
plunged,  a  living  stream  of  green,  into  the  purple-grey  of  the 
waters.  Through  the  swirl  of  the  angry  tides,  she  threaded 
her  way  with  writhing  double-handed  stroke,  the  copper  of 
her  hair  loosing  out  behind  her  under  the  pull  of  the  currents, 
the  emerald  of  her  dress  clinging  to  her  limbs  until  she 
looked  like  some  mermaid  playing  in  the  waters.  But  as 
Stella  Fay  reached  the  child,  the  undertow  had  dragged  him 
down.  For  a  moment,  the  girl  had  half  risen  in  the  waters, 
shaking  the  hair  out  of  her  eyes,  and  then  had  plunged  under 
the  surface. 

For  seconds  they  had  stood  there  looking  at  the  blank  sur- 
face which  showed  no  signs  of  life.  Finn  had  hated  the  girl 
beside  him.  She  who,  although  she  could  swim,  had  let  the 
child  drown — it  was  that  other,  who  in  the  last  minute  had 
come  so  strangely  close  to  him,  that  had  ventured  into  the  heart 
of  the  angry  tides.  And  now  she  was  gone. 

But  even  as  they  looked,  there  was  a  flash  of  ruddy  copper 
in  the  green  waters  as  something  beat  itself  towards  the  light 
with  something  clutched. 

And  it  was  then  that  Finn  clambering  down  one  of  the 
stanchions  that  supported  the  pier,  clinging,  desperate,  with 
leg  and  hand  to  the  slippery  surface,  had  reached  down  to  take 
up  the  little  broken  child  and  hand  him  up  into  the  arms  of 
his  mother.  And  so,  finding  foothold  where  the  cement  had 
fallen  away,  he  had  taken  the  girl  up  beside  him,  feeling  the 
soft  pressure  of  her  foot  upon  his  shoulder  as  she  climbed 
lightly  above  him,  and  so  she  had  reached  down  her  hand 
to  help  him  back  into  safety  out  of  the  whimper  of  the  waters 
which  lunged  past. 

But  Deirdre  Asthar  had  hurried  away,  the  little  proud 
head  bowed,  the  slender  shoulders  moving  convulsively. 

"Thanks  Finn/'  the  girl  had  said  as  she  stood  there,  her 


196  GODS 

garments  clinging  to  her.  She  had  reached  out  her  hand  to 
him,  the  other  carelessly  swinging  her  hair  behind  her  head 
in  one  great  dank  horse-coil. 

"Now  you  can  kiss  me." 

She  had  pressed  her  body  against  him  and  held  up  the  wet 
of  her  bright  red  lips  to  his. 

He  stooped  and  kissed  her,  once,  twice,  as  a  thirsty  man 
drinks  a  glass  of  water  that  is  lifted  to  his  lips. 


XIX 

HYSSOP   AND   VINEGAR 

WHEN  Finn  Fontaine's  world  fell  to  pieces  on  the  impact  of 
two  kisses  from  a  pair  of  red  lips — when  all  that  structure 
he  had  so  laboriously  evolved  in  the  previous  four  years  crashed 
about  him,  it  left  him  dazed  as  though  he  had  been  physically 
hurt.  And  now,  under  the  roar  of  the  express  which  was 
bearing  him  to  Euston,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  heard  voices 
that  whispered  to  him  from  under  the  tumult  of  the  wheels. 

These  voices  were  many.  Some  urged  him  to  lose  himself 
in  a  coil  of  copper  hair  and  a  pair  of  red  lips — others  spoke 
to  him  of  ambition  and  urged  the  slaying  of  self  for  the 
glorification  of  self,  urged  him  to  make  his  surrender  to  Thrum 
so  that,  becoming  financially  free,  he  might  one  day  realise 
his  art.  And  there  was  another,  a  strange  little  voice  this, 
which  seemed  to  him  the  voice  of  the  island  he  was  leaving 
and  which  told  him  as  a  mother  might  tell  a  child  that  neither 
desire  nor  ambition  was  the  goal  of  life — but  love. 

Sometimes  this  last  voice  would  come  to  him  speaking 
through  human  lips,  whilst,  above,  two  eyes  gazed  steadfastly 
at  him  from  under  their  serene  assured  brows.  And  then 
Deirdre  Asthar  would  be  speaking  to  him,  not  as  in  life,  not 
as  the  frightened  girl  of  that  day  by  the  sea,  but  as  another 
Deirdre — a  Deirdre  that  lay  hidden  beneath  that  other — the 
Deirdre  that  had  revealed  herself  to  him  under  her  humiliation. 

And  her  he  called  the  spirit  of  Ireland,  and  it  was  of  that 
spirit  he  had  been  trying  to  write  in  his  first  attempt  at  a 
book,  and  failing.  Ireland,  like  Deirdre  Asthar,  refused  analy- 
sis. One  had  feelings  about  her — one  could  not  write  about 
her. 

So  it  was  that  Finn  returned  to  London.  His  was  no  ela- 
tion at  the  conquering  of  a  beautiful  woman — he  felt  himself 
rather  the  conquered.  That  day  by  the  waters  upon  the  moist 
compression  of  those  lips  he  had  felt  strange  exultation — 

197 


198  GODS 

and  afterwards  that  something  "had  touched  the  hem  of  his 
garment."  Then  the  depression. 

Now  he  understood  why  those  monks  up  there  in  that  mon- 
astery of  Melleray  on  the  side  of  the  Knockmealdown  moun- 
tains, many  of  them  young  men,  strong  men,  gifted  men,  had 
walked  out  of  life  into  the  living  death  of  the  Trappist.  He 
knew  why  some  of  them  had  taken  the  vows  of  perpetual 
silence  and  shut  themselves  into  the  tomb  of  their  thoughts 
and  the  door  upon  dead  memories.  Now  he  knew  why  the 
Spirit's  Elect  had  the  comfort  as  well  as  the  terrible  courage  of 
their  convictions.  Sorrow  opened  all  doors,  made  plain  the 
secret  things  of  life.  He  had  also  his  black  draught — his  also 
the  hyssop  and  the  vinegar. 

He  no  more  thought  of  marriage  with  Stella  Fay  than  with 
the  girl  with  whom  he  was  finished  for  ever — Deirdre  Asthar. 
Women  like  Stella  Fay  did  not  marry.  They  were  the  ele- 
mental things  of  life,  going  through  the  world  to  set  the 
hearts  of  men  afire  and  finally  passing  out  themselves  in  strong 
blinding  flame.  To  think  of  marriage  with  spirits  like  Deirdre 
Asthar  was  to  think  of  the  un-human  and  impossible.  Love 
for  such  beings  subsisted  only  upon  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
It  died  upon  fleshly  approach.  One  did  not  love  them  as  crea- 
tures of  flesh  and  blood  but  loved  rather  something  that  stood 
behind  them.  And  yet,  though  unapproachable,  Deirdre 
Asthar  was  human — even  adorable.  Only  now  he  had  put 
the  thought  of  her  from  him  for  ever — her  coldness  and  con- 
tempt, as  that  physical  cowardice  which  in  man  or  woman 
seemed  to  him  the  unforgivable. 

But  why  did  he  always  see  those  starry  eyes  that  veiled  a 
secret  from  him? 

Not  that  Stella  Fay  had  taunted  Deirdre  with  her  cowar- 
dice. She  had  if  anything  been  nicer  to  her — only  the  girl 
had  drawn  into  herself,  had  avoided  those  others,  except  her 
half-brother  and  Mrs.  O'Hara.  And  even  in  his  most  strenu- 
ous contempt,  Finn  remembered  something  that  Father 
Lestrange  had  once  said  about  such  things:  "Cowardice,  Finn, 
is  a  matter  of  temperament — the  really  brave  man  is  the 
natural  coward  who  masters  his  fear.  And  we  must  distin- 
guish between  cowardice  and  terror.  I  knew  a  general  once, 
in  the  British  army,  who  could  not  enter  a  house  where  there 
was  a  cat." 


HYSSOP  AND  VINEGAR  199 

And  Deirdre  Asthar  had  always  had  that  strange,  unreason- 
ing terror  of  deep  waters,  never,  despite  her  being  able  to 
swim,  venturing  out  of  her  depth.  He  had  heard  her  say  that, 
as  a  child,  she  would  have  this  terror  when  entering  her  bath 
— a  terror  of  something  that  lurked  there  to  drag  her  down. 
And  Mrs.  O'Hara  had  told  him  the  story  of  an  English 
nurse  who  had  frightened  her  by  taking  her  into  the  deep 
waters  under  Carrickmore,  and  that  since  then  she  had  feared. 
Yet  Finn  still  thought  she  should  have  conquered  herself. 
But,  after  all,  what  was  it  to  him?  She  had  never  been  any- 
thing to  him  nor  ever  could  have  been  anything.  To  Deirdre 
Asthar  he  was  nothing. 

The  atmosphere  of  Ash  Villa  was  not  however  conducive 
to  these  thoughts.  From  the  moment  when  the  door  was 
opened  by  a  savage  from  Limehouse,  whom  Mrs.  Fontaine  had 
winkled  out  of  a  home  for  Protestant  Foundlings,  where  she 
had  been  brought  up  on  dogma  and  skilly,  and  who  stood 
something  over  four  feet  in  her  heelless  shoes,  a  wisp  of  cap 
set  askew  upon  some  aspish  hair  of  a  nondescript  ginger  and 
a  corner  of  red  flannel  below  the  abbreviated  skirts  that  was 
like  a  falling  from  grace — Finn  was  conscious  of  a  new  atmos- 
phere in  the  home. 

Ginger,  as  she  had  originally  informed  Mrs.  Fontaine  her 
name  was,  she  not  knowing  any  other,  although  her  official 
name  at  the  Protestant  Foundlings  was  "G.  Tinker,"  there 
always  having  been  some  doubt  about  her  Christian  name, 
met  her  new  master  with  a  friendly  grin  upon  a  generous  mouth 
which  displayed  a  vast  sense  of  her  importance  in  the  scheme 
of  things  entire.  She  had  never  seen  him  before,  but  ob- 
viously wished  him  to  feel  at  home  from  the  start. 

"Oh,  sir — and  we  'ave  been  a-hexpectin'  of  you  for  the 
larst  parst  two  hours.  We'd  quite  given  you  up  for  lorst. 
We  'ad  indeed.  Missus  will  be  pleased — so  will  marster." 

In  the  hall,  a  plate  of  blue  china  containing  some  carefully 
scattered  visiting  cards  perched  perilously  upon  the  umbrella 
stand.  The  plate  was  chipped  and  had  been  substituted  for 
its  predecessor,  which  was  whole,  by  Mrs.  Fontaine,  "because 
it  might  fall."  On  the  stairs,  some  real  carpet  had  replaced 
the  imitation  cork  linoleum  of  some  months  before.  In  the 
little  drawing-room,  the  blinds  were  carefully  drawn  to  shut 
out  any  possible  rays  of  the  January  sun  from  the  new  lace 


200  GODS 

curtains  which  Mr.  Fontaine  had  purchased  in  one  of  his 
journeys  from  a  nice  young  man  with  a  broad  nose  a  trifle 
hooky  and  a  Lancashire  accent  who  had  told  him  "it  being  his 
birthday  he  was  givin'  'em  away."  He  had  also  confided  to 
the  believing  Jemmy  an  aphorism  which  had  caused  him 
to  ruminate  over  many  days.  He  had  said:  "In  this  world, 
guv'nor,  if  ye've  got  nothing  but  your  skin,  the  others  will 
take  away  your  skin  too;  but  the  more  you  have  the  more 
people  want  to  give  you." 

In  the  little  dark  room,  it  was  a  case  of  high  cockleorum 
and  thank  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow!  His  mother, 
arrayed  more  like  a  bride  than  a  mother,  in  clothes  of  the 
lightest  possible  shade,  with  a  cross  of  imitation  diamonds 
pendant  from  her  neck  and  a  generally  scintillating  effect,  re- 
ceived him  with  a  new  dignity;  his  father,  not  so  shrunken, 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  viewing  the  effect  from  a  remote  cor- 
ner. His  aunt  Bella  who,  as  her  sister  became  whiter  and  whiter, 
seemed  to  become  blacker  and  blacker,  looking  indeed  a  perfect 
raven,  appeared  to  be  suffering  from  a  certain  access  of  ac- 
erbity and  uric  acid.  She  was  sniffy — distinctly  sniffy.  And 
there  was  a  smell  of  onions  in  the  room.  Upon  the  floor  lay 
an  ill-considered  ornament  in  smithereens,  Uncle  Bobs,  as  he 
was  informed,  having  just  blown  in  and  blown  out  again. 
Nobody  troubled. 

"I'll  buy  you  a  dozen  of  these,"  said  Jemmy,  touching  one  of 
the  broken  pieces  with  the  toe  of  a  contemptuous  boot. 

In  the  corner,  reading  happily  a  tract  entitled  "The  Sinner 
in  Hell,"  as  he  noticed  when  he  threw  his  arms  about  her 
to  kiss  her,  was  his  dear  little  grandmother. 

On  the  wall  hung  an  enlarged  picture  of  the  giver  of  all 
good  things,  Mr.  Buldger  Spellbind,  whose  beetling  forehead 
and  deep  rather  close-set  eyes  stared  philanthropically  at  that 
other  enlargement — the  lady  of  Beauty  Soap,  now  relegated 
finally  to  the  position  of  a  distant  relation.  For  Mr.  Fon- 
taine had,  in  his  new  found  prosperity,  given  up  selling 
"Beauty"  and  had,  metaphorically,  told  the  terrible  MacGlusky 
to  go  to  the  devil  with  his  coals.  That  is  to  say,  in  point  of 
actual  fact,  he  had  gone  more  or  less  hat  in  hand  and  with  a 
certain  proud  humility  asked  permission  to  resign  in  view  of 
"having  come  into  some  money."  For  "The  Happy  Homes  of 
England,  Limited"  were  rushing  upwards  and  James  Fontaine 


HYSSOP  AND  VINEGAR  201 

and  his  wife  had  sold  out  at  hundreds  per  cent,  and  were 
thinking  of  retiring. 

The  only  blot  upon  all  this  was  Aunt  Bella,  who,  it  ap- 
peared, had  had  a  slight  "seizure."  (Mrs.  Fontaine  said  it 
with  a  certain  distant  dignity  that  conjured  visions  of  credit- 
able apoplectic  seizures  of  the  rich  with  side-whiskered  medi- 
cal practitioners.)  When  she  got  up  to  walk  to  the  door, 
Finn  noticed  that  she  tottered  a  little,  whilst  the  scar  on  her 
face,  which  had  taken  a  whiter  hue,  twitched.  ^  But  what 
she  lost  in  physical  power  she  made  up  in  a  religious  venom 
that  would  have  done  credit  to  a  converted  Russell's  viper. 
She  at  least  had  no  doubts  that  the  present  affluence  was 
a  trick  of  Satan  to  seduce  the  souls  of  her  sister  and  brother- 
in-law,  and  she  said  so,  what  time  the  eye  of  Aunt  Maria, 
who  was  trying  to  hide  herself  behind  the  door,  rolled  itself 
piously  around. 

"Of  course  you  could  not  expect  us  to  take  in  lodgers," 
said  Mrs.  Fontaine  distantly  and  apropos  of  nothing  in  par- 
ticular. "Not  even  paying  guests.  It  is  so  demeaning.  We 
are  about  to  give  that  person  Strom  upstairs  notice — he  and 
his  vibrations  indeed  and  his  sculpture.  His  ridiculous  statues! 
Not  a  bit  like  life."  Mrs.  Fontaine  sniffed  a  trifle. 

It  looked  doubtful  for  the  Swedish  lodger,  who,  in  order,  as 
he  said,  "to  refine  his  vibrations,"  had  recently  developed  ex- 
cessive tendencies  to  purification  of  the  body,  internal  and 
external,  which,  taking  the  form  of  purges  and  sunbaths,  had 
caused  further  complications  in  the  road. 

"Genevieve,"  said  Mrs.  Fontaine  to  Ginger,  "serve  the 
tea." 

"They  called  her  'Ginger',"  she  explained  loftily  as  the  little 
servant  with  a  "Yes  'm"  went  out  of  the  room.  "We  could 
not  have  that,  of  course,  so  we  have  baptised"  (she  said  the 
word  again,  thought  she  really  meant  "christened")  "her 
Genevieve.  Really,  when  she  first  came  she  was  quite  a 
savage.  Quite.  Had  the  most  heretical  notions  about  Chris- 
tianity and  used  the  oddest  expressions — the  oddest.  .  .  ." 
Mrs.  Fontaine  opened  her  eyes  slightly  at  Finn,  who  was 
sitting  with  one  long  arm  about  his  little  grandmother  who 
was  patting  the  bony  hand  as  she  used  to  do  when  Finn  was 
a  tiny  baby. 

"Of  course  you  know  we  Cutheys  have  a  crest,"  said  Mrs. 


202  GODS 

Fontaine  largely  and  assuredly.  "Perhaps  you  would  like  to 
see  it."  She  went  over  to  what  she  called  her  "escritoire," 
and,  taking  out  a  sheet  of  greyey-blue  paper,  pushed  it  over 
to  Finn,  who  saw  upon  the  top  an  apoplectic  black  goose  with 
a  silver  spoon  in  its  beak.  "A  silver  spoon,"  said  Mr.  Fon- 
taine making  one  of  his  rare  jokes. 

But  Mrs.  Fontaine  said  it  was  a  swan  and  appeared  much 
disgusted  at  what  she  called  Finn's  plebeian  imagination,  for 
Finn  in  his  innocence  had  referred  to  it  as  the  inferior  bird. 
Aunt  Judy,  with  her  capacity  for  putting  her  foot  in  it,  had 
also  mistaken  the  bird  for  a  goose,  and  Aunt  Bella  had 
turned  the  iron  in  the  wound  by  remarking  in  airy  malignancy: 
".  .  .  but  all  Fanny's  geese  are  swans." 

His  father,  in  his  corner,  seemed  to  have  something  on  his 
mind.  He  made  several  what  his  grandmother  called  "offers" 
to  speak,  coming  half  way  out  of  his  corner  to  do  so,  but  was 
prevented  by  the  majestic  attitude  of  his  wife,  who  obviously 
was  determined  to  steer  the  ship  of  prosperous  state.  At 
last  it  came  out. 

He  had  had  a  personal  interview  with  Mr.  Spellbind,  who 
had  advised  him  to  "double  his  capital  and  go  the  whole  hog" 
(Mr.  Spellbind  for  so  serious  a  pillar  of  the  church  had  curious 
lapses  at  times)  by  buying  back  some  of  the  shares  he  had 
sold  in  The  Happy  Homes  of  England,  which  he  said  were 
worth  double  their  present  market  price.  "For  his  part,  he 
did  not  mind  doing  a  fellow-Christian  a  good  turn  and  in  re- 
gard to  getting  the  shares  cheap  he  knew  a  man.  .  .  ."  He 
had  even  given  Mr.  Fontaine  his  signed  photo  which  now  hung 
over  the  mantelpiece. 

"A  sweet  man,"  said  Jemmy. 

"A  noble  soul,"  responded  his  wife. 

"Cent,  per  cent.,"  said  Mr.  Fontaine  with  a  business  acer- 
bity unusual. 

Finn  felt  strangely  uneasy  in  all  this  affluence.  Through 
his  association  with  Crux,  he  knew  a  little  of  Buldger  Spell- 
bind and  his  "reconstructions,"  in  which  he  specialised.  Out- 
side the  "the  city"  he  was  regarded  as  a  public  benefactor  and 
philanthropist — inside,  in  admiring  praise,  as  "that  downy 
bird — Spellbind."  In  fact,  it  had  lately  become  quite  the 
fashion  for  religion  and  finance  to  get  mixed  together,  just  as 
the  church  and  stage  had  been  mixing  in  the  previous  decade, 


HYSSOP  AND  VINEGAR  203 

with  a  fine  tolerance  on  the  part  of  the  former  and  as  fine  and 
good-humoured  a  contempt  on  the  part  of  the  latter.  At  the 
last  masked  ball  held  at  the  Conventual  Garden,  the  first  and 
second  prizes  had  been  won  by  two  men  got  up  respectively  as 
"Church  and  Stage"  and  "Religion  and  Finance."  The  first 
had  made  up  half  of  his  face  and  body  as  a  clergyman  with 
shovel  hat,  choker  and  black  coat,  and  the  other  half  as  a 
rouged  and  painted  lady  of  the  ballet  from  her  coiffure  to  her 
abbreviated  frills  and  well-proportioned  silk-tighted  calf.  The 
other  had  made  up  one  half  of  his  body  as  a  Jew  money  lender, 
holding  in  his  hand  the  sign  of  the  three  golden  balls,  his  nose 
was  pendulous,  his  eye  cupreous,  and  the  other  half  as  a  sort 
of  Reverend  Stiggins,  with  broken  black  cotton  gloves,  gamp 
and  dirty  white  socks. 

When  he  looked  at  the  shrunken  respectability  of  his  pro- 
genitor, the  moist,  grey,  believing  eye  and  the  last  pair  of  bul- 
bous boots  and  then  up  at  the  little  close-eyed  man  with  the 
bulging  forehead  which  he  had  always  associated  with  poison- 
ers, his  heart  misgave  him.  He  felt,  as  he  always  felt  in  that 
atmosphere,  a  sense  of  overwhelming  depression  and,  as  al- 
ways, finding  it  unbearable,  he  went  out  into  the  hall,  took 
up  his  hat  and  made  his  way  over  to  the  Titterlings.  Mrs. 
Titterling  and  Mary  were  the  only  two  beings  he  could  find 
tolerable  after  Ireland. 

Mrs.  Titterling,  as  ever,  greeted  him  serenely,  with  a  quiet 
welcome  that  seemed  to  be  always  expectant.  But  there  came 
to  him  as  he  looked  at  her  a  feeling  of  something  changed.  The 
apparent  calmness  of  gaze  had  something  deep,  eroding,  in  the 
heart  of  it  as  one  sees  red  suns  in  the  blackness  of  mountain 
lakes.  There  was  a  wildness,  for  all  its  outward  calm,  in  the 
grey  eye,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  something  was  tearing  at 
the  heart  of  this  woman. 

Mr.  Titterling  he  found  luxuriating  in  the  little  back  draw- 
ing room,  no  longer  scrabbling  for  cigarette  ends  under  the 
fireplace,  but  smoking  from  a  case  of  green  crocodile,  with 
an  excessive  gold  "T.  T."  on  the  outside,  long  gold-tipped  fel- 
lows which  he  drew  down  into  his  lungs  one  after  the  other  to 
his  exceeding  satisfaction.  (It  was  the  first  time  Finn  had 
ever  seen  him  with  a  whole  cigarette.)  The  monocle  glittered 
at  an  aggressive  angle.  In  the  tie  a  horseshoe  diamond  pin 
made  play  with  the  flames  of  the  fire,  and,  in  fact,  as  Mr. 


204  GODS 

Titterling  made  himself  announced  between  two  spasms  of 
Master  Seymour  who,  being  at  the  moment  a  Bedouin  chief, 
kept  plunging  in  and  out  of  the  room  at  intervals,  mostly  un- 
expected, from  the  desert  of  the  passage  followed  by  Larkin 
and  Plantagenet,  he  was  "flush."  Little  Elizabeth,  showing 
rather  more  red  drawer  than  usual,  pillowed  her  tossed  head 
on  Bluggins  the  bulldog,  who  licked  his  chops  in  friendly  but 
inconsequent  greeting  to  Finn. 

Yet  to  Finn  there  came  something  of  that  same  uneasiness 
which  he  had  felt  when  he  had  looked  at  Mrs.  Titterling.  The 
two  horns  of  hair  curled  with  their  unsure  parting  over  the 
high  nose  and  humorous  eyes  and  mouth  of  Mr.  Titterling,  who 
to  Finn  looked  like  a  gay  dog.  but  a  sad  dog  after  a  night  of  it. 

"Listen  to  'em,"  he  said,  as  he  motioned  with  his  head 
through  the  wall  from  which  came  the  sound  of  one  of  those 
bitter-sweet  hymns  chaunted  by  Elder  Parkinson  and  Mrs.  Tit- 
terling. "They  give  me  the  creeps." 

"Finn,"  he  said  all  at  once.  "Do  you  believe  in  hell?"  The 
monocle  had  dropped  to  reveal  an  anxious  eye.  "Damned  if  I 
don't,"  he  added  enigmatically  without  waiting  for  an  answer. 

Finn,  without  knowing  exactly  why,  liked  this  sad  bad  dog 
of  a  Titterling.  There  was  something  so  genuine  and  so  friendly 
about  him  that  he  always  liked  to  speak  with  him.  There  was 
something  so  understanding  and  tolerant — that  was  it — tol- 
erant, something  so  nearly  loveable,  that  he  always  felt  at 
home  and  unstrained  with  this  man. 

"You  know,  Finn,  when  I  was  a  little  chap  going  to  the 
Baptist  chapel,  I  thought  hell  was  all  my  eye.  Now  I'm  not  so 
sure.  I  never  believed  in  it  until  I  kicked  over  the  traces. 
You  know  what  it  was  with  me — well,  I'll  tell  you,  though 
you're  young  for  that  sort  of  thing — it  was  the  women.  Gawd's 
truth,  but  I  never  knew  whether  they  were  angels  or  devils. 
The  worst  of  them  could  have  made  me  a  saint  and  the  best  of 
them  a  sinner.  Jiggered  if  I  know  the  difference.  The  sin- 
ner makes  the  best  saint.  Tell  you  the  honest  to  God,  some 
of  the  Piccadilly  ladies  have  filled  me  as  a  boy  with  more  fine 
thoughts  and  yearnings  for  the  unattainable  than  my  own 
wife,  whom  I  worship  as  I  have  never  worshipped  my  God. 
Why  is  it,  Finn,  that  the  good  woman  never  fills  one  with 
beautiful  fancies?  Why  is  it  always  the  Strange  Woman?" 

He  looked  at  the  boy  in  humourous  bewilderment  and  hit  a 


HYSSOP  AND  VINEGAR  205 

lump  of  coal  on  the  head  with  the  poker  as  though  he  would 
see  what  was  inside. 

"Finn,"  he  said,  breaking  off  suddenly  as  though  it  had  just 
occurred  to  him:  "What  is  love?" 

Finn  blushed  hotly.  Some  of  these  things  he  had  been 
hearing  were  the  things  he  himself  had  been  feeling. 

"Needn't  flush,  old  man,"  said  Mr.  Titterling  in  his  friendly 
fashion.  "We've  all  been  through  it."  He  drew  a  deep  breath 
of  cigarette  smoke  and  expelled  it  thinly  through  a  corner  of 
his  mouth  looking  at  it  like  a  connoisseur  through  the  mono- 
cled  eye.  He  had  become  serious. 

"Tell  you  what.  The  old  -girl  guesses  something.  She's 
tumbled  to  something.  You  thought  I  didn't  see  you  that  day 
at  Liverpool  Street  Station  when  that  girl  was  saying  good-bye 
to  me.  Ah,  but  I  did."  He  looked  knowingly  at  the  boy. 

"It's  all  about  her.  Left  one  of  her  letters  about — damned 
awkward  and  damned  careless — and  I  believe  the  missus  found 
it.  P'rhaps  not.  But  she  has  a  funny  look  in  her  eye  the 
last  few  days  and  she  has  been  praying  at  me  through  that 
wall."  He  gestured  through  the  wall  with  a  cigarette  held 
like  a  pencil  between  finger  and  thumb. 

"Ever  been  prayed  at?     It's  awful,  Finn,  awful     .     .     ." 

"Push  off,  you  young  devil,"  he  broke  off  to  adjure  young 
Seymour  who  had  just  made  another  raid,  looking  more  than 
ever  like  locusts  and  wild  honey. 

"She's  been  praying  at  me  now  for  four  days  and  nights.  She 
threatens  me  with  hell  and  I'm  afraid.  That's  Gawd's  truth, 
I'm  afraid.  Not  only  afraid  of  her  hell,  but  of  something 
else.  There's  something  calculating  and  suppressed  in  her  that 
frightens  me.  I  know  Popples"  (it  was  his  pet  name  for  his 
wife),  "and  she'd  stick  at  nothing.  I  know  her.  She'd  damn 
you  to  save  your  soul — that's  the  only  way  I  can  put  it — like 
Torquemada  and  that  little  lot. 

"Well,  so  long.  I'm  going  to  hoof  it.  Can't  stand  that  thing 
there.  Not  a  word  to  the  wife  .  .  ."  He  had  slipped  out. 

Finn  sat  there  wondering  at  the  complexity  and  yet  simi- 
larity of  life.  Much  that  Titterling  had  said  to  him  was  his 
own  story  with  Deirdre  Asthar  and  Stella,  the  battle  between 
body  and  spirit.  He  put  his  head  down  between  his  long  legs 
and  bony  knees.  The  world  was  too  much  for  him. 

He  was  awakened  by  a  gentle  pressure  on  his  shoulder, 


206  GODS 

looked  up  to  find  little  Mary  Titterling,  strangely  bigger  and 
older,  looking  at  him  with  her  serious  eyes,  her  black  hair 
falling  about  her.  And  then  she  had  thrown  herself  into  his 
arms  and  her  own  lorjg  slender  arms  about  his  neck  and  had 
pressed  her  face  to  his. 

"Oh,  Finn,  Finn,"  was  all  she  could  say.  And  then  .  ,  , 
"Oh,  I'm  so  glad  you're  back — I'm  in  such  trouble." 

She  had  taken  herself  away  with  a  little  gesture  of  grave 
dignity  and  stood  looking  at  him,  her  hands  clasped  behind 
her  back.  "It's  mother  and  father  .  .  .  and  .  .  . 
everything."  And  then  she  had  broken  into  a  torrent  of  weep- 
ing as  though  her  world  also  were  too  much  for  her,  whilst 
Bluggins  and  little  Elizabeth  looked  on  astonished. 

"I  can't  believe,  Finn.  I  can't  believe.  I  don't  believe  in 
mother's  hell  and  in  the  Spirit's  Elect.  I  can't  .  .  ."  She 
said  it  piteously.  "I  believe  God  is  love.  I  believe  love  can  do 
all  things — can  save  father  and  all  of  us.  I  want  love — to  be 
loved.  I  want  to  love  the  whole  world." 

She  stood  there.  "I  cannot  bear  to  live  without  love,"  she 
said.  "They  don't  love.  They  hate."  She  nodded  through 
the  wall  as  her  father  had  done. 

And  then,  impetuous,  she  had  thrown  herself  into  his  arms 
once  more  and  had  placed  her  arms  about  his  neck  and  had 
told  him  shyly:  "I  love  you,  Finn,  I  love  you." 

And  he  had  kissed  her  and  comforted  her  and  so  it  was 
that,  coming  in  from  the  prayer-meeting  on  the  other  side 
of  the  wall,  her  nose  very  much  on  one  side  from  her 
naturally  good  heart  trying  to  encompass  the  terrifying  belief 
in  the  damnation  of  the  whole  race  outside  the  Elect,  a  trifle 
heartbroken,  and  now  in  the  sceptical  sneery  stage  through 
which  she  always  passed  in  her  religious  experiments,  Aunt 
Judy  had  found  them. 

Finn  returned  to  Ash  Villa  to  find  a  big  square  rough* 
papered  envelope,  faintly  scented,  awaiting  him  from  Stella 
Fay,  with  a  letter  asking  him  to  go  to  the  reception  by  the 
London  Universalists  to  Ellen  Masters  at  Charing  Cross,  who 
now  was  on  her  way  from  India.  "It  is  a  new  revelation,"  she 
had  written  in  her  strong  upright  hand  with  the  printed  capi- 
tals. "And  she  is  bringing  Chandra  Pal,  'the  Light  from  the 
East.'  It  is  his  thirty-sixth  reincarnation.  Won't  you  come 
.  .  ."  and  then  she  had  written  after  a  little  space,  in 
inverted  commas:  "Finn,  dear?" 


XX 

ELLEN  MASTERS 

One  at  least  had  marked  Finn's  new  hesitancy.  The  Jesuit, 
with  that  instinct  of  his  order  which  has  trained  reason  into 
intuition,  saw  that  his  time  had  come,  and  made  a  great 
effort  to  do  what  he  had  all  along  had  in  mind — to  win  the 
boy  for  the  church,  for  one  of  those  active  orders  where  those 
gifts  of  speech  and  energy  which  Finn  was  now  revealing  to 
the  interested  eye  of  the  priest  could  be  used  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. 

This  tall  man,  with  the  dark  rolling  eye,  had  guessed  more 
than  Finn  ever  could  have  thought  possible.  Paris  Asthar  and 
his  half  sister  he  knew,  as  Finn  had  discovered,  and  then  there 
was  Father  Con  in  Dunhallow,  so  that  it  did  not  need  extra- 
ordinary exercise  of  the  imagination  for  Father  Lestrange  to 
piece  together  that  disordered  mosaic  of  Finn  Fontaine's  later 
years. 

He  had  invited  him  to  the  Catholic  Cathedral  at  Westmin- 
ter,  where  the  sermon  had  been  preached  by  a  prince  of  the 
Church,  a  famous  cardinal,  an  Irishman,  whose  tall  ascetic 
figure  and  boyish  face  with  its  close-cut  white  hair  standing 
out  from  under  the  scarlet  biretta,  which  he  had  removed  in  the 
pulpit,  and  scarlet  robe  peeping  from  under  his  surplice,  had 
deeply  impressed  the  boy.  He  had  preached  upon  "False  Gods," 
choosing  for  his  text:  "Thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods  but 
Me." 

This  scarlet-frocked  priest  had  spoken  of  the  false  gods 
now  being  "created"  (a  curious  word),  throughout  the  world, 
and  their  symbols.  The  false  gods  of  Democracy  with  their 
symbol  of  blood,  the  Red  Flag,  reared  in  defiance  of  the  sym- 
bol of  Religion,  the  Cross,  and,  as  he  spoke,  Finn  had  thought 
of  how  General  Bliss  and  Paris  Asthar  had  once  said  much 
the  same  thing  about  symbols  but  in  other  words,  although  the 
latter  had  said  that  the  symbols  of  Christianity  and  Democracy 

207 


208  GODS 

were  both  symbols  of  blood — the  Crucifixion  and  the  Red  Flag. 

Of  Ireland — and  the  voice,  until  then  harsh,  dominating, 
softened  strangely  as  he  said  it — he  spoke  with  a  rare  affection, 
saying  that  in  the  years  to  come  the  Island  of  the  Faith  would 
once  more  become  to  Europe  and  the  world  "the  Isle  of  Saints" 
as  it  had  in  the  centuries  that  were  gone.  It  also  had  its 
symbol — the  Green  Flag — and  for  a  moment  the  Churchman 
had  become  the  politician,  for  the  eyes  had  flashed  under  their 
dark  curving  brows.  But  through  it  all,  the  Church  of  Rome 
moved  assured,  triumphant,  up  to  that  last  day  when,  as  the 
speaker  said,  "the  final  battle,  the  battle  between  the  dogmas 
of  this  world  and  of  the  world  to  come — the  dogmas  of  So- 
cialism and  Catholicism — would  usher  in  the  Armageddon 
from  which  the  Church  of  Christ  would  emerge  triumphant 
for  all  time." 

But  before  then,  he  said,  the  world  was  to  have  another  Ar- 
mageddon— a  great  war  which  should  have  only  one  object, 
whatever  the  apparent  reason  might  be:  "the  tearing  down 
of  the  veils  between  this  world  and  the  next  and  with  it  the 
destruction  of  that  materialism  which  had  gradually  during 
the  preceding  half  century  been  covering  the  spirit  of  Europe 
like  a  poisonous  accretion." 

It  was  on  this  note  the  sermon  had  finished — a  note  of  omni- 
potent faith.  It  was  what  Finn  had  once  heard  Paris  Asthar 
say  that  evening  at  "The  Cloisters"  to  the  professors,  and  he 
had  seen  Paris  Asthar  himself  standing  in  one  of  the  side  aisles 
watching  the  Mass  as  though  it  had  been  a  show  and  smiling 
secretly  to  himself.  The  face  seemed  to  have  sunk  still  more 
into  its  folds,  crumbling  away  behind  them,  as  he  had  first 
noticed  it  that  night  of  Asthar's  struggle  with  Patsey  in  the 
House  of  Dreams. 

There  ran  to  his  mind,  irrelevant,  a  favourite  gibe  of  As- 
thar's: "To  every  bishop  his  crook."  He  was  always  gibing 
at  Christianity  and  calling  himself  "a  Pagan." 

The  Jesuit  had  taken  him  after  the  gorgeous  paganism  of 
the  Byzantine  mass  to  the  high  tower  from  where  London 
stretched  itself  out  into  a  grey  infinity  around  them,  and  from 
there  he  had  shown  him,  if  not  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  the  glory  of  them,  other  kingdoms.  Finn  had  been 
deeply  moved  by  the  Mass  and  had  felt  that  same  almost  pain- 
ful desire  which  he  had  felt  that  day  in  the  Strand  Tabernacle, 


ELLEN  MASTERS  209 

to  throw  himself  upon  the  bosom  of  infinity  and  let  himself  be 
carried  out  on  the  wings  of  the  spirit.  The  tinkle  of  tam- 
bourine, the  bray  of  trumpet,  and  the  smash  of  drum — the 
shouts  of  the  faithful  as  the  exhortation  of  the  speaker — had 
been  replaced  by  the  deep  sourdine  of  the  invisible  organ,  the 
voices  of  men  and  boys  chanting  and  the  grandeur  of  the  mass 
with  its  embroidered  traditions  of  the  centuries  .  .  .  but 
the  feeling  was  the  same.  Finn  knew  that  both  were  the  same 
thing. 

And,  not  knowing  that,  the  Jesuit  knew  nothing.  He  had 
marked  Finn's  emotion  and  he  believed  as  such  clever  spirits 
believe  that  his  time  had  come — whereas  it  had  passed. 

He  found  the  boy  strangely  unresponsive  to  the  story  in 
which  he  contrasted  the  evanescence  of  the  present  with  the 
eternal  permanence  of  the  future.  And  then  he  had  been  silent, 
to  say  after  a  moment: 

"I  think  there  is  something  else  at  the  bottom  of  this,  Finn, 
my  boy."  He  had  placed  a  lean  white  hand  upon  the  boy's 
shoulder  as  they  looked  at  the  sun  sinking  dully  down  through 
the  frosty  mists  of  a  February  day.  He  broke  off  ... 
"I  knew  a  man,  once,  Finn  .  .  .  He  was,  I  think,  a  strong 
man,  and  he  meant  to  be  a  good  one  ...  he  was  a  man 
much  as  you  will  one  day  be.  He  had  more  than  his  share  of 
good  looks — don't  blush,  Finn,  for  you  are  becoming  rather  a 
splendid-looking  fellow,  you  know,"  he  said  smilingly,  "and 
he  had  a  good  deal  more  than  his  fair  share  of  brains — at  least, 
so  his  teachers  said,  and  it  seemed  to  him  on  the  threshold  of 
life  that  only  one  thing  existed  there — a  pair  of  woman's  eyes 
.  .  ."  He  was  again  silent  for  a  moment,  the  ball  of  red 
flame  as  it  sunk  showing  itself  in  smouldering  fires  in  the 
depths  of  the  eyes,  the  face  illumined  as  it  looked  through  the 
haze  of  blue  silver.  "And  in  those  eyes  he  lost  himself — soul 
and  body. 

"I  knew  the  man,  I  say — that  is  why  I  speak  so  surely  of 
him  ...  he  told  me  his  story.  He  was  a  Catholic  and 
she  a  Protestant.  But  it  was  not  that.  He  had  pledged  him- 
self when  quite  a  child  to  other  eyes,  to  those  of  Mary  the 
Mother  of  God.  But  once  I  ..."  he  corrected  himself 
quickly,  "he  thought  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  turned  round 
his  divinity,  but  there  came  the  moment  when  he  had  to  decide 
between  his  love  and  the  Church,  his  love  for  God  or  for  the 


210  GODS 

world.    He  chose  God,  and  he  has  never  regretted  it    .    .    ." 

He  said  it  strongly  enough,  but  his  voice  faltered  a  little  as 
he  said  it.  Finn,  looking  at  the  tall  figure  where  it  stood  near 
the  lofty  coping,  seemed  to  see  a  light  of  neither  earth  nor 
heaven  shining  upon  the  dark  face  as  he  had  seen  it  stand  in 
that  dream  of  long  ago  before  the  flickering  fires  of  the  open 
pit. 

From  the  high  tower  where  he  had  seen  the  sun  sink  in  blue 
fire  behind  the  bricks  and  mortar,  Finn  went  to  his  afternoon 
engagement  with  Stella  Fay,  whom  he  was  to  meet  at  the  Uni- 
versalist  headquarters  in  Piccadilly.  The  Jesuit  might  have 
shaken  him,  had  it  not  been  that  the  desire  to  love  which  filled 
him  was  not  founded  upon  any  particular  faith,  but  upon 
Faith.  This  desire  was  to  him  the  same  thing  as  that  exalta- 
tion which  came  to  him  sometimes  out  of  nothing — it  was  the 
thing  of  which  he  got  the  reflection  as  faces  that  men  see  in 
dark  wells  or  the  thing  caught  in  the  web  of  memories  from  the 
days  of  the  twilight  when  men  and  spirits  had  loved  and  played 
together,  something  conjured  by  Patsey's  fairies  or  by  a  fang 
of  grey  ruin  sentinelling  lonely  seas — or  the  thing  that  seemed 
to  lie  behind  all  work  and  play  and  prayer  as  it  lay  behind 
the  face  of  a  young  girl  or  the  voice  of  a  boy.  The  wish  to 
love. 

Sometimes  the  passion  of  this  thing  seemed  to  lie  in  the 
touch  of  Stella  Fay,  who,  in  a  carnate  way,  made  flesh  and 
spirit  one  and  invisible. 

And  again,  sometimes,  it  seemed  to  him  that  this  same  thing, 
this  desire,  this  driving  force,  lay  in  ambition.  He  longed  for 
power,  for  recognition,  but  this  faith  of  his  was  also  part  of 
that  longing.  He  wished  to  have  power  over  the  souls  of  men 
and  then  it  would  come  to  him  that  it  was  not  domination  he 
wanted  but  love — that  his  wish  for  power  was  but  a  sort  of 
hunger  for  souls.  He  wished  to  love  and  to  be  loved. 

Mary  Titterling  was  right.  Patsey  was  right.  Love  was  the 
heart  of  all  things.  Love  could  not  be  placed  behind  the  bars 
of  any  tabernacle  or  any  church.  Love  and  faith  were  one 
thing.  It  was  the  thing  that  was  the  universal  solvent,  not 
only  of  the  barriers  between  men,  but  of  those  between  the 
worlds  of  matter  and  spirit.  And  sometimes  the  grey  hunger- 
line  of  the  Embankment  would  drift  across  his  consciousness 
like  a  wreath  of  smoke. 


ELLEN  MASTERS  211 

But  these  thoughts  quickly  passed  as  he  came  to  the  Uni- 
versalist  headquarters  with  the  mystic  snake,  its  tail  in  its 
mouth,  symbol  of  eternity,  over  the  door  of  the  bookshop  which 
formed  the  ground  floor  of  the  place.  The  shop  was  closed,  it 
being  a  Sunday,  but  he  ran  his  eye  over  the  books  in  the 
window. 

Here  also  that  synthesis  of  love  and  faith  seemed  to  be  at 
work.  A  book  upon  modern  ghost  stories  lay  side  by  side  with 
a  book  upon  Indian  Yoga,  and  another  upon  "Fluidic  Vital- 
ism," whatever  that  might  mean.  The  Bhagavad  Gita  nestled 
close  to  a  morocco  bound  copy  of  the  New  Testament,  whilst 
a  gilt  statue  of  the  Buddha  smiled  sleepily  across  the  expanse 
of  shelf  at  a  plaster  figure  of  the  Christ.  Here,  a  book  on 
"Love  and  Death,"  a  book  of  beauty  as  Finn  knew,  lay  side 
by  side  with  a  little  pretentious  pamphlet  called  "On  the  Thres- 
hold," with  the  superscription  by  "An  Indweller"  in  a  sort  of 
arrogant  humility.  That  queer  book  of  Paris  Asthar  upon 
"How  the  Gods  Are  Born,"  which  had  been  banned  as  blas- 
phemous from  the  public  libraries,  stared  insolent  from  its  yel- 
low binding  at  a  treatise  upon  the  Persian  religions,  whilst 
Thomas  a  Kempis's  "Imitation  of  Christ"  lay  by  the  side  of 
"The  Delphic  Oracle,"  and  a  book  upon  "The  Secret  of  the 
Pyramids"  opened  at  a  passage  which  said  that  they  had  never 
been  used  for  tombs,  but  only  as  chambers  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  neophyte  for  the  secrets  of  the  priesthood  and  urg- 
ing that  they  should  be  restored  to  their  former  use. 

With  all  this  he  had  a  sort  of  cuneiform  vision  of  books 
covered  with  the  hieroglyphics  of  Babylon  and  Egypt  and 
others  with  the  lettering  of  Sanscrit,  whilst  modem  faiths 
were  represented  by  a  treatise  upon  the  newly  introduced  to 
Europe  universal  religion  of  Bahaism. 

Of  course  Universalism  itself,  which  professed  to  be  the  syn- 
thesis of  all  religions,  ancient  and  modern,  lay  inextricably 
around  and  through  all  this  as  a  sort  of  matrix. 

Surely  here  was  that  synthesis  of  life  which  Finn  had  seemed 
to  be  realising,  but,  instead,  it  left  him  bewildered,  impressed 
and  doubtful.  This  was  rather  patchwork  than  synthesis.  Yet 
the  book  on  Universalism  which  Stella  had  lent  him  had,  with 
its  recognition  of  one  central  point  common  to  all  religions, 
struck  fire  from  his  imagination. 

In  the  passage  at  the  side  of  the  shop,  where  a  riot  of  per- 


212  GODS 

fumes  struggled  together,  he  found  a  gilded  cage  aflutter  with 
strange  birds — he  could  even  see  some  feathers  waving  in  the 
half  light — one  of  the  birds,  which  finally  showed  itself  as  a 
small  brass-bound  boy,  struggling  to  open  the  highly  gilded 
gate  of  the  lift,  which  he  had  just  shut  on  the  others. 

In  one  corner,  after  he  had  entered,  Finn  found  a  sort  of 
bull-man,  whose  frock  coat  clothed  him  sleekly,  his  absurdly  di- 
minutive hand  holding  a  big  curly-brimmed  silk  hat.  From 
above  the  high  and  glossy  collar  he  beamed  ecstatically  upon 
Finn  to  his  extreme  confusion,  which  was  deepened  by  finding 
close  to  him  a  sort  of  ancient  Babylonian  dancing  girl,  her 
withered  chins  enlaced  by  strings  of  Persian  turquoises,  like  the 
crop  of  some  old  fowl,  who  looked  at  him  in  quick  bird-like 
fashion  from  under  the  nodding  cock  plumes  which  crested  for- 
ward from  her  high  round  hat.  She  was  so  decollete  that  she 
made  him  ashamed,  and  her  perilous  skirts  rustled  as  she 
moved.  It  was  the  rustle  of  riches  as  Finn  had  come  to  know 
it  and  it  made  him  angry  in  a  resentful  way. 

On  the  other  side  of  him  in  the  lift  was  an  old  lady  with 
a  heavily  furrowed  face  of  strong  intelligence  that  he  found 
beautiful  in  its  ugliness.  Her  eyes  reminded  him  of  Mrs. 
O'Hara's.  In  another  corner,  a  young  white-haired  man  on 
crutches  rested  himself  against  the  side  and  surveyed  the  whole 
with  a  sort  of  humourous  indulgence. 

The  contents  of  the  cage  were  as  mixed  as  the  books  in 
the  shop  below. 

And  so  they  were  shot  out  upon  a  sort  of  platform  before  a 
draped  door,  inside  which  he  was  received  by  Stella  Fay, 
who  introduced  him  in  a  whisper  (everybody  spoke  in  whis- 
pers), to  the  secretary,  a  tall,  languid-looking  young  woman, 
with  tired,  sceptical  eyes.  Scattered  about  the  floor,  distinctly 
superior  people  stood  in  graceful  attitudes  with  a  tendency 
to  a  sidelong  projection  of  hip  and  an  undefined  trend  to  the 
ecstatic. 

He  glanced  curiously  around  the  spacious  room,  which  smelt 
like  a  Catholic  church.  There  was  a  semi-Orientalism  about 
the  place  which  brought  to  the  mind  the  inner  chamber  of  a 
palmist  or  certain  sides  of  the  Earl's  Court  Exhibition.  The 
room,  like  the  people  who  filled  it,  seemed  to  have  attempted 
something  and  failed.  It  was  as  though  a  ballet  girl  had  tried 
to  become  a  nun. 


ELLEN  MASTERS  213 

Stella,  her  hand  guiding  his  elbow,  was  watching  him  closely. 
It  seemed  to  him  there  was  something  mocking  in  her  look.  As 
so  often,  she  seemed  to  be  laughing  at  herself  as  well  as  at  every- 
thing. 

He  looked  up,  troubled  from  her  glance,  to  find  a  face  star- 
ing at  him  out  of  a  picture  that  hung  above  a  draped  portal, 
over  the  heavy  velvet  curtains  of  which  "The  Temple"  was 
written  in  gold  lettering.  The  pin-point  irises  fixed  him  with 
an  expression  of  concentrated  power  that  was  nearly  terrifying. 
It  was  the  face  of  one  who  had  pierced  matter  to  reach  the 
thing  that  lay  behind  it,  had  pierced  into  mind,  if  not  spirit, 
and  had  sacrificed  everything  to  knowledge  and  to  the  power 
that  was  knowledge.  Stella  Fay  told  him  that  it  was  Madame, 
Spiridanovitch,  the  founder  of  Universalism,  usually  known  as 
"the  Spiridanovitch." 

There  was  no  question  about  the  quality  of  that  painting, 
but  it  faced  a  banal  sugary  figure  of  Christ,  whilst  towering 
behind  him  he  found  the  glassy  eyes  of  a  plaster  figure  of  a 
woman  of  an  excessive  maternity  suckling  a  lumpy  baby,  and 
called  "The  Mother."  On  another  wall,  the  painting  of  a 
young  woman  staring  into  nothingness  with  an  expression 
meant  to  be  soulful  hung  side  by  side  with  a  faceless  figure  with 
a  lamp,  standing  outside  a  low  wicket  set  in  an  old  wall  and 
very  beautiful.  It  was  all  part  of  the  confusion  of  the  place 
and  of  the  people  in  it. 

Stella,  who  seemed  to  take  a  perverse  delight  in  introducing 
him  to  different  people  and  watching  the  effect,  brought  him 
over  to  the  decollete  lady  of  the  lift,  who  was  holding  forth 
to  a  little  circle  near  by. 

He  was  surprised  at  the  variety  of  type. 

About  him  raged  a  sort  of  allegorical  conversation  out  of 
which  he  caught  strange  words.  Mahatmas,  Gurus,  Upani- 
shads,  Bhagavad  Gitas,  Gnuanis,  threaded  one  another,  whilst 
the  lady  towards  whom  he  had  been  led  was  fast  becoming 
fourth-dimensional,  using  a  word  that  sounded  like  "Guhurt- 
namatana"  with  frequency.  Two  other  words — "Maya"  and 
"Karma"  would  every  now  and  then  pop  up  and  duck  down 
again. 

Stella  Fay  told  him  the  story  of  this  lady,  who  was,  or  had 
been,  for  he  gathered  in  some  cloudy  way  that  she  had  divorced 
several  husbands,  a  Mrs.  Leghorn.  She  it  was  who  had  led 


214  GODS 

the  secession  from  the  ranks  of  the  Dawn  Thoughters,  at  that 
time  headed  by  a  Mrs.  Kronkhorse,  a  lady  with  a  cosmic  dash 
in  her  like  an  inherited  taint,  who  had  hailed  from  the  U.  S.  A. 
Mrs.  Kronkhorse,  it  seemed,  had  been  a  little  corpulent  bulg- 
ing-eyed woman,  possessed  of  considerable  gifts  of  oratory  and 
organisation,  but  Mrs.  Leghorn  had  been  too  much  for  her. 

Mrs.  Leghorn  had  been  in  many  similar  sects  which,  with  a 
positive  genius  for  splitting,  seemed  always  to  be  in  a  state 
of  disintegration,  much  to  the  advantage  of  the  Universalists, 
who  thrived  accordingly.  She  was  now  trying  to  form  a 
sort  of  inner  circle  in  the  Universalists  to  be  called  "The  Sons 
and  Daughters  of  the  Morning  Star,"  but,  as  Stella  Fay  said, 
"in  spite  of  all  her  spiritual  hindleggedness,  she  was  going  to 
have  a  pretty  bad  time  when  Ellen  Masters  came  back."  Ellen 
Masters,  like  her  predecessor,  "the  Spiridanovitch,"  stood  no 
nonsense.  She  ruled  by  a  sort  of  divine  right,  but  even  Stella 
Fay  had  to  admit  that  she  was  a  most  beloved  woman  of  sin- 
gular power  and  sweetness,  who  never  abused  her  authority. 

The  only  spot  on  Mrs.  Leghorn's  sun  was  the  wife  of  an 
African  bishop,  a  Mrs.  Largo,  who  despised  her  husband's  re- 
ligion as  only  the  wife  of  an  African  bishop  could,  and  who 
was  now  challenging  Mrs.  Leghorn's  supremacy  in  the  new 
circle.  She  was  a  large  woman  with  a  commanding  air,  who 
now  stood  a  little  outside  the  group,  regarding  her  rival  with 
a  certain  voluminous  contempt. 

All  this  time,  the  big  bullish  man  who  had  been  in  the  lift, 
standing  head  and  shoulders  above  that  crowd,  and  looking 
like  a  man  who  had  rushed  at  the  cosmos  head  down,  was 
declaiming  to  all  that  cared  to  listen  that  he  had  given  up 
smoking  and  drinking  and  meat  and  that  he  was  "Cured!"  this 
last  in  a  stentorian  bellow.  His  arms  waved.  His  voice 
boomed.  Finn  recognised  the  Penitent  Form,  but  of  a  superior 
kind. 

Speaking  afterward  to  an  elder  Daughter  of  the  Morning  in 
Paradise  silk  and  to  her  daughter,  "a  neophyte,"  as  she  told 
Finn,  who  was  attired  in  a  slender  robe  of  some  white  woollen 
stuff  with  a  rope  around  the  waist,  he  learned  that  the  gen- 
tlemanly bull,  who  now  looked  pale  and  interesting  from  his 
last  fall  from  grace,  was  apt  to  have  what  his  informants  called 
"lapses."  It  was  this  gentleman  who,  running  upon  him  after 
an  introduction  by  Stella  Fay,  informed  him:  "We  have  been 


ELLEN  MASTERS  215 

together,  my  dear  boy,  in  the  court  of  Rameses  in  Lower  Egypt 
.  .  .  .and  don't  you  remember  me,  my  dear  old  chap? 
Knew  you  the  moment  I  looked  at  you."  Mr.  Buck  Cronstairs, 
the  well-known  "blood"  and  man-about-town,  reminded  him 
more  than  once  of  Uncle  Bobs. 

It  was  a  most  astonishing  place.  The  lady  in  the  Paradise 
silk  discovered  to  him  that  he  had  been  a  priest  in  the  time 
of  Ra-Ra  some  four  thousand  years  before,  putting  it  to  him 
as  a  business  proposition  and  in  a  commonsense  way  as  to 
whether  he  did  not  remember  dancing  the  Sacred  Dance  with 
her  before  the  Quenchless  Fire,  which  so  staggered  him  that  he 
did  gurgle  something  in  his  throat  which  might  be  taken  as 
acquiescence  or  denial. 

There  was  a  real  discoloured  Indian  there,  who  was  sus- 
pected of  being  a  sacred  prince  and  who  had  a  habit  of  seeing 
things.  He,  Finn,  was  informed,  was  the  two  hundred  and 
thirty-third  reincarnation  of  one  of  the  Gurus  of  Hindustan, 
but  ancient  though  he  was,  he  was  but  a  mere  youth  by  the 
side  of  an  old  gentleman  who  assured  Finn  quite  coolly  that  he 
had  lived  in  Atlanta. 

Through  all  this,  Stella  Fay  moved  with  that  queer  mock- 
ing smile,  watching  Finn. 

It  was  the  same  chaos  that  was  over  the  bookshop  below — a 
newer  Twentieth  Century  Tower  of  Babel.  Everything  was  la- 
belled and  put  away  in  a  nicely  docketted  bottle.  They  even 
labelled  and  bottled  the  Godhead.  They  were  very  like  some 
of  the  scientists,  he  thought.  What  they  did  not  understand, 
they  simply  labelled  and  left  it. 

And  yet  Finn  could  not  fail  to  see  many  earnest  faces 
amongst  those  about  him.  There  was  a  white-haired  young 
woman,  with  startlingly  black  brows  and  eyes,  who  confided  to 
him  that  between  Universalism  and  Universalists  there  was  a 
great  gulf  fixed.  "We  started  with  a  fervent  desire  to  abolish 
all  dogma  and  now  have  made  that  a  dogma.  It  is  mankind's 
tendency  to  crystallisation." 

Whilst  he  was  speaking  to  this  young  woman  he  was  aston- 
ished to  find  standing  inside  the  door  as  though  he  had  been 
blown  in  by  the  wind,  Strom,  his  mother's  lodger.  He  stood 
there,  a  queer  figure  of  a  man,  with  black  curling  hair  that 
sprouted  from  crown  and  nostril  and  face,  falling  over  a  pair 
of  goat-like  faithful  eyes  which  brought  back  Aunt  Judy.  He 


2i6  GODS 

was  dressed  in  a  frock  with  certain  strange  braidings  upon 
the  sleeves  and  a  pair  of  boots  that  looked  like  sandals. 

Under  his  arms  he  carried  a  pair  of  hooded  statues,  "those 
ridiculous  statues"  of  Mrs.  Fontaine,  holding  them  as  though 
they  had  been  a  pair  of  babies. 

The  languid  secretary  approached  him,  Finn  hearing  him 
say  that  he  had  brought  two  of  his  statues  for  Ellen  Masters 
as  a  present,  he  being  obviously  nonplussed  when  that  young 
woman  held  out  her  hands  for  them  as  though  they  had  been 
a  bunch  of  flowers.  But  Strom  would  not.  He  had  come  to 
place  them  within  the  Temple  itself — within  that  Holy  of 
Holies  of  Universalism. 

There  was  something  devoted  in  the  face  of  the  Swede,  who 
he  knew  had  been  working  upon  a  series  of  symbolic  caryatic 
figures,  for  a  temple  upon  an  island  set  in  the  sapphire  seas 
of  Sweden  which  he  wanted  Ellen  Masters  to  build.  He  had 
lived  meanly,  poorly,  for  the  sake  of  his  life-dream,  as  Finn 
also  knew,  for  his  mother  had  sometimes  had  to  complain  about 
the  rent,  and  here  was  this  languid  girl  taking  his  gold  and 
frankincense  and  myrrh  as  though  it  were  of  no  account. 

"But — but,"  he  heard  him  say  with  a  sort  of  puzzled  rever- 
ence, "I  cannot  allow  another  to  place  my  statues.  That  is 
for  the  artist.  There  is  a  ...  an  art  in  placing."  He 
said  it  with  a  proud  humility,  but  the  young  woman  was  tired 
and  yawned  behind  a  manicured  hand. 

"You  see  to  him,"  she  said  to  Mrs.  Leghorn  as  she  hurried 
away.,  "I've  got  to  get  ready  for  the  chief." 

"If  you  want  to  enter  the  Temple  you  must  take  off  your 
boots  and  put  on  those,"  said  the  lady  of  the  turquoises  point- 
ing to  a  pair  of  oriental  slippers.  "No  profane  feet  must  en- 
ter the  temple.  It  is  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Go  on.  You've  got 
to  do  it,"  she  said,  becoming  religiously  skittish. 

The  sculptor  looked  at  her  reproachfully  with  wide-open 
child-like  eyes,  and  gathering  his  statues  still  closer  to  him  he 
went  away  in  silent  dignity.  The  dust  seemed  to  be  shaken 
from  the  broad  soles  of  the  sandalled  feet  and  the  frock  coat 
had  become  a  gabardine. 

There  was  a  rush  towards  the  doors  as  a  high  voice  said: 
"The  Master  comes  in  half  an  hour."  Stella  Fay,  who  through- 
out had  been  holding  herself  remarkably  well  in  hand,  pressed 
Finn  in  that  close  proprietorial  way  which  had  now  become  so 


ELLEN  MASTERS  217 

common  with  her,  laying  her  silken  sleeve  upon  his  arm  and 
moving  with  him  towards  the  door. 

When  they  entered  the  station  they  found  most  of  the  peo- 
ple they  had  left  drawn  up  in  ranks  of  reception,  forming  with 
others  who  had  joined  them  a  gathering  of  both  sexes  and  all 
ages,  on  the  outskirts  of  which,  in  dishevelled  curiosity,  hung 
a  human  derelict  who  had  drifted  into  the  station.  Here  was 
every  type.  Earnest  young  faces.  Old  haggard  women,  still 
striving  after  the  elixir  of  youth,  who  had  passed  from  con- 
gregation to  congregation  and  from  cult  to  cult.  One  or  two 
fine-looking  old  women  of  the  type  of  the  woman  Finn  had 
seen  in  the  lift — the  woman  with  the  wrinkled  face.  But  few 
old  men.  And  the  young  bull-man  dancing  from  one  foot  to 
the  other,  alternately  lunging  back  and  forward.  Later  Finn 
learned  to  know  it  as  the  reception  atmosphere. 

There  was  a  rumbling,  a  whistle,  a  turning  of  heads  and 
eyes,  and  then  a  saloon  coach  had  run  up  opposite  the  chalked 
inclosure  in  which  stood  the  sheep  of  the  elect.  Looking 
through  the  windows  of  the  private  carriage  Finn  saw  an  old 
silvery  haired  lady  with  something  leonine  in  eye  and  mouth, 
the  symbol  of  the  serpent  upon  her  breast,  seated  opposite  a 
young  and  very  dark  Indian  boy,  dressed  with  a  painful  cor- 
rectness in  European  dress,  over  whose  Eton  collar  the  long 
lank  hair  fell  to  the  shoulders.  There  was  a  reverential  strain- 
ing of  eyeball  as  a  low  murmur  went  up  from  those  assembled. 

Finn  noticed  in  particular  a  weak-looking  monastic  young 
man  of  abnormal  stature  whose  small  burning  eyes  and  hooked 
nose  might  have  stepped  out  of  a  mediaeval  cell,  who,  with  Mr. 
Buck  Cronstairs  had  stationed  himself  opposite  the  door,  and 
as  the  old  lady,  clad  in  some  white  hooded  woollen  stuff  that 
gave  to  her  something  of  the  priestess,  came  to  descend,  he 
was  amazed  to  see  the  two  men  each  take  a  corner  of  her 
white  full  skirts  and  lift  them  a  few  inches  from  the  ground, 
so  that  holiness  might  not  be  stained  by  the  mud  of  London, 
displaying  as  they  did  so  a  pair  of  elastic  side  boots  and  white 
cotton  stockings  that  made  Finn  love  her.  Ellen  Masters 
passed  with  a  series  of  dignified  bows  to  the  victoria  upon  the 
box  of  which  sat  the  bareheaded  coachman,  waiting. 

As  he  looked,  the  wretch  he  had  seen  hanging  on  th-?  edges 
of  the  crowd,  lousy,  brutalised,  his  hair  hanging  over  the  collar 
of  his  greasy  coat,  pushed  his  way  through  some  of  the 


218  GODS 

swarming  acolytes,  who  repulsed  him  with  horrified  gestures 
as  he  tried  to  beg.  With  a  motion  of  the  grey-veined  hand,  un- 
adorned save  for  a  great  sapphire  upon  the  forefinger,  the 
woman  had  made  room  for  him  to  come  to  her.  She  had  taken 
his  filthy  hand  in  hers,  had  looked  with  that  look  that  might 
have  come  from  a  Christ  into  the  sodden  eyes  of  the  aston- 
ished man,  and  had  placed  her  purse  in  his  hand,  the  heavy 
leonine  eyes  bent  upon  him  in  loving  friendliness.  To  the  ad- 
miring murmurs  of  her  devotees  she  turned  a  cold  indifferent 
eye,  looking  upon  them  sadly  and  heavily.  And  then  she  had 
swept  to  her  carriage  and  had  driven  away  like  a  Queen  of 
Heaven,  the  gold  of  the  serpent  upon  her  breast  glittering  un- 
der a  last  ray  of  light  which  had  found  its  way  under  the 
arch  of  the  station. 

Here  was  another  symbol,  the  serpent-symbol  of  Universal- 
ism,  as  the  Cross  was  that  of  the  Jesuit,  the  Red  Flag  of  Democ- 
racy and  the  Green  Flag  of  Ireland.  All  these  things  touched 
Finn.  Was  it  that  they  stood  for  one  thing — the  thing  behind 
existence? 


XXI 

FAITH    AND    FINANCE 

Jemmy  Fontaine  was  in  the  middle  of  an  elaborate  toilet,  as- 
sisted by  his  wife  and  a  skirmishing  and  ecstatic  Ginger.  Mrs. 
Fontaine  had  taken  from  the  olive  oil  flask  in  the  wicker-work 
cover  the  anointing  reserved  for  the  more  sacred  occasions  of 
life  and  had  liberally  doused  Jemmy's  disappearing  hair  until 
the  scalp  beneath  shone  again. 

There  had  been  rather  a  pointed  argument  about  the  third- 
best  tie,  which  Jemmy  said  didn't  matter  as  he  wore  a  beard 
and  nobody  ever  saw  it,  but  Ginger  had  diplomatically  in- 
serted the  second-best  and  as  Mrs.  Fontaine,  sententious,  said: 
"That  was  that."  The  white  socks  had  also  been  a  source 
of  trouble,  falling  shamelessly  over  the  tops  of  Jemmy's  high 
uppers,  with  the  two  top  holes  unlaced,  and  revealing  some 
inches  of  hairy  calf  when  he  sat  down.  For  Jemmy  never 
wore  drawers  which,  following  his  mother,  he  regarded  as  un- 
healthy, and  neither  threat  nor  persuasion  on  the  part  of  his 
wife  had  been  able  to  move  this  article  of  belief. 

At  last  he  was  made  ready  this  December  morning  ten 
months  after  that  reception  to  Ellen  Masters.  The  top  hat  of 
his  prosperity  still  shone,  though  wanly.  Under  his  arm  he  car- 
ried a  formidable  umbrella,  without  ferrule,  as  Jemmy  wore 
them  down  and  never  renewed  them.  A  pair  of  new  white 
wool  gloves  were  on  his  hands  with  the  right  ready  to  draw 
off  at  a  moment's  notice  in  the  event  of  Mr.  Buldger  Spell- 
bind being  seized  with  an  overwhelming  desire  to  take  him  by 
the  hand — something  from  which  he  frequently  suffered  where 
the  shareholders  in  the  Happy  Homes  of  England,  Limited, 
were  concerned. 

For  the  Happy  Homes  were  the  occasion  of  these  solemn 
preparations.  The  meeting  ("special  general"  was  the  tech- 
nical and  impressive  description)  had  been  advertised  with 

219 


220  GODS 

broad  tolerance  not  only  in  the  hectic  press,  but  in  "The 
Low  Churchman,"  as  in  the  newspapers  of  the  Nonconformist 
Conscience,  and  was  to  be  held  in  the  large  hall  of  the  Metro- 
politan Mission  Centre  at-,  the  other  end  of  the  Tottenham 
Court  Road,  which  was  indifferently  given  over  to  faith  and 
finance,  where  Mr.  Spellbind  usually  held  his  meetings. 

There  had  been  a  second  reconstruction  of  the  Homes  and, 
if  Mr.  Spellbind  had  his  way,  there  was  going  to  be  a  third. 
"Doing  it  on  them"  was  the  comment  of  the  vulgar  and  irre- 
sponsible Plugg,  who  owned  and  edited  that  organ  of  public 
opinion  with  the  million  circulation — "The  Plain  Englishman." 
But  Plugg  was  irreligious  and  kept  racehorses.  So  it  didn't 
matter  about  Plugg. 

Within  the  previous  months,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fontaine  had 
been  cast  from  the  heights  of  affluence  into  a  condition  that  can 
best  be  described  as  mercurial.  Jemmy,  under  the  advice  of 
Spellbind,  had  been  buying  back  large  quantities  of  the  Happy 
Homes  shares  which  he  had  sold  at  such  a  big  profit,  and  these 
shares  were  now,  in  the  words  of  a  reverend  shareholder  who 
had  written  toJ'The  Earth"  about  it,  "in  a  parlous  condition." 
The  shares,  wnTch  were  not  quoted  in  the  Stock  Exchange  list, 
had  been  transferred  to  Jemmy  upon  various  and  several  occa- 
sions by  gentlemen  of  the  names  of  Wiginbottom,  Buckle  and 
an  obviously  honest  man  of  the  name  of  Smith.  But  Plugg, 
in  that  alliterative  way  of  "The  Plain  Englishman,"  had  said 
in  his  columns  under  the  title:  "Faith  or  Fake?"  that  Wiggin- 
bottom  was  Spellbind,  and  Spellbind,  instead  of  taking  a  libel 
action  and  recovering  thousands  as  he  said  he  might  easily 
have  done,  had,  instead,  prayed  for  his  enemy,  and  that  pub- 
licly. This  had  impressed  even  nasty  shareholders,  who  had 
been  wavering. 

And  here  was  Jemmy  wedged  in  the  midst  of  a  couple  of 
thousand  other  Jemmies  before  the  platform  of  the  Metropoli- 
tan Mission,  hypnotised  by  the  close-set  eyes  and  philanthropic 
forehead  of  Mr.  Spellbind,  who  had  opened  the  meeting  with 
a  hymn,  which  Tiad  taken  the  starch  out  of  a  score  of  blood- 
thirsty clergymen  who,  in  the  words  of  "The  Plain  English- 
man," were  "out  for  blood."  (Buldger  Spellbind  was  well 
aware  of  the  ferociousness  of  the  lamb  of  Christ  when  deprived 
of  dividends  and  took  his  precautions  accordingly.)  One  of 
these  bloodthirsty  shareholders,  an  old  dog  at  the  game,  upon 


FAITH  AND  FINANCE  221 

the  giving  out  of  the  hymn,  had  raised  a  weak  and  unchristian 
protest  against  mixing  the  sacred  with  the  profane,  but  had 
been  quickly  blanketed  into  silence  by  a  shocked  "Hush!" 
largely  led  by  Jemmy,  who,  with  some  hundreds  of  others, 
looked  upon  Mr.  Spellbind  as  not  a  little  lower  than  the  angels. 

As  for  Mr.  Spellbind,  he  was  careful  to  confine  himself  to 
generalities,  speaking  vaguely  but  soothingly  about  the  Christ- 
lessness  and  the  Socialism  of  the  age,  as  evidenced  by  the 
marchings  to  and  fro  of  the  unemployed,  as  he  said,  poeti- 
cally, "seeking  whom  they  might  devour."  It  seemed  that  the 
costs  of  administration  of  the  Homes  had  been  very  high  owing 
to  the  rabid  demands  of  irreligious  workmen,  largely  incited 
thereto  by  haters  of  religion  like  Mac  Adam  and  Red  Borb,  and 
they  had  also  been  subjected  to  a  most  un-Christian  strike 
against  rent  by  "wretches  who  didn't  know  a  good  house  when 
they  saw  one." 

Also,  and  here  the  chairman  fixed  his  audience  effectively^ 
the  shares  had  been  the  subject  of  gambling.  That  was  a 
hit.  The  little  shrunken  middle-class  investors,  convicted  of 
sin,  crept  closer  together.  "Buldger,"  as  Jemmy's  neighbour, 
a  little  oilman  from  the  borough,  said,  "was  indeed  in  his  best 
form.  Most  impressive." 

He  was  consideration  itself.  From  under  this  mildly  re- 
proachful accusation  of  the  little  man  with  the  small  overhung 
eyes,  there  gradually  emerged  the  unpleasant  fact  that  the 
Happy  Homes  were  under  the  necessity  of  finding  fresh  capital 
or  going  "Phut!"  This  last  sound  Mr.  Spellbind  realistically 
produced  by  exploding  his  cheeks.  He  paused  a  moment,  look- 
ing over  the  rows  of  faces  before  him,  and,  apparently,  re- 
assured, gradually  revealed  the  golden  reward  which  would 
come  to  those  who  had  the  money  and  the  faith  to  find  the 
fresh  capital,  this  time  inflating  his  cheeks  confidently  into 
the  smoothness  of  realisation  and  without  subsequent  deflation. 

A  little  dismayed  silence  had  followed  the  "Phut,"  but  this 
now  gave  way  to  a  gratified  murmur  as  the  golden  future  of 
the  Homes  was  painted  in  by  the  hand  of  the  artist  on  the 
platform.  It  was  indeed  with  a  feeling  of  pained  disgust  that 
the  audience  listened  impatiently  to  an  old  clergyman,  who 
very  earnestly  raised  the  question  of  the  rumour  which  had 
appeared  in  that  man  Plugg's  paper  to  the  effect  that  a  large 
portion  of  the  Happy  Homes  were  inhabited  by  fallen  women, 


222  GODS 

who  paid  the  rents  from  the  wages  of  shame.  The  result  was 
indescribably  painful. 

A  low  murmur  of  indignation  lifted  itself  "at  the  intrusion 
of  such  shocking  matters  into  an  ordinary  business  meeting." 
Mr.  Spellbind  looked  at  the  aged  sinner  more  in  sorrow  than 
in  anger,  and  said,  quietly,  that  even  if  such  a  shocking  alle- 
gation were  true,  which  Heaven  forfend,  were  our  erring  sis- 
ters not  to  be  given  a  bed  to  lie  on?  Was  that  the  meaning 
of  Christianity? 

It  was  conclusive.  The  old  man  sat  down,  his  dim  blue 
eye  showing  apologetic  doubt.  And  curiously  enough  it  was 
this  last  incursion  which  definitely  turned  the  tide  in  Mr. 
Spellbind's  favour,  the  resolution  to  reconstruct  being  carried 
with  only  one  dissentient,  and  those  present  clustering  round 
the  platform  after  the  meeting  to  shake  hands  with  the  little 
man  in  the  frock-coat  who  bent  down  with  podgy  fist  to 
take  hand  after  hand,  his  little  eyes  beaming.  Jemmy,  who 
had  pulled  off  his  right  glove  for  the  occasion,  had  managed 
to  force  his  way  to  the  front,  being  rewarded  by  a  special: 
"You  are  a  sensible  man,  Mr.  Fontaine.  You're  putting  your 
shirt  on  the  Homes!"  which  sent  him  home  in  a  state  of  exal- 
tation such  as  one  of  Napoleon's  young  officers  might  have  felt 
upon  being  made  Field  Marshal. 

A  council  of  war  had  gathered  at  Ash  Villa  to  hear  the  re- 
sult. There  was  Mrs.  Fontaine  and  Aunts  Bella  and  Maria, 
with  Ginger  skirmishing  in  and  out  of  the  room  upon  errands 
of  the  imagination,  holding  what  might  be  called  a  sort  of 
"watching  brief"  for  herself.  Finn  had  been  admitted  more 
or  less  on  sufferance  for,  as  the  only  person  there  with  any  first- 
hand knowledge  of  finance,  his  people  despised  his  opinion  as 
only  the  taker  of  quack  medicine  can  despise  the  regular  prac- 
titioner. 

Jemmy's  hand  still  tingled  from  the  Spellbind  recognition. 
His  grey  eyes  shone  as  he  spoke  of  that  gentleman's  eloquence, 
and  indeed,  it  was  not  until  Finn  had  asked  the  unpleasantly 
definite  question:  "Does  that  mean  you  have  to  find  more 
money?"  that  the  family,  after  first  falling  upon  him  as  though 
he  had  spoken  blasphemy,  and  then  tacitly  admitting  the  ques- 
tion, as  is  the  way  of  families,  sank  into  the  colder  depths  of 
fact.  Ginger,  in  the  momentary  silence  which  had  followed 
Finn's  question,  had  enunciated  throatily  but  with  a  terrible 


FAITH  AND  FINANCE  223 

clearness:  r'Blarst  that  Buldger!"  and  had  prompty  been 
sent  out  of  the  room  to  adjust  both  her  language  and  certain 
articles  of  attire,  made  of  red  flannel,  which,  as  usual,  hung  in 
distress  below  her  skirts.  She  retired  with  the  sniff  and  hitch 
to  which  they  were  accustomed. 

After  this  the  conversation  showed  a  tendency  to  wander 
from  the  point,  recriminations,  irrelevant  and  bitter,  so  absorb- 
ing the  belligerents  that  Aunt  Judy  was  able  to  insert  herself 
through  the  door  unnoticed  and  lay  her  nose  between  the 
strings  of  Mrs.  Fontaine's  little  harp  chair,  sitting  sideways 
upon  which  she  looked  at  them  as  from  behind  bars.  Jemmy 
now  deeply  depressed,  his  eyes  glassy,  remained  silent  under 
the  double-handed  attack  of  his  wife  and  sister-in-law,  the  scar 
upon  the  latter's  face  twitching  with  a  malevolent  independence 
as  she  attacked  him  for  his  lack  of  enterprise  and  money.  Aunt 
Maria,  by  gradually  backing  her  chair  into  a  corner,  tried  un- 
availingly  to  dematerialize.  Finn,  now  a  most  difficult  cus- 
tomer to  handle,  sat  bolt  upright  in  his  chair,  viperish,  his 
green  angry  eyes  anticipating  the  attack  personal. 

But  as  Jemmy  said  in  a  lull:  "Haven't  I  tried  books? 
Haven't  I  tried  Beauty?  Haven't  I  tried  splatterdashers? 
What  do  you  want  me  to  try  now?" 

He  looked  piteously  from  face  to  face.    His  eyes  trembled. 

"Didn't  I  wear  down  two  sets  of  Blakey's  boot  protectors 
the  last  two  months  over  there  in  Walthsmstow,  and  in  all 
that  length  of  houses  there  wasn't  one  to  give  me  a  cup  o'  tea, 
and"  (he  flushed  as  he  said  it),  "if  there  had  I  wouldn't  have 
taken  it.  Haven't  I  had  me  breeches  torn  twice  and  me  little 
packet  of  books  thrown  after  me  three  times?" 

He  turned  from  the  defensive  to  the  offensive:  "What  about 
the  dogs?  .  .  .  tell  me  that.  What  about  me  corns? 
.  .  .  tell  me  that.  Why,  God  dash  my  buttons!"  (Jemmy's 
most  terrible  oath),  "haven't  I  tried  safety  razors  an'  pencils 
and  Bibles  an'  sporty  pictures  with  wicked  women  and  maybe 
damned  me  soul  and  all?  .  .  .  haven't  I,  a  teetotaller, 
with  me  blue  ribbon  in  me  button-hole  tried  beer  an'  cough 
mixture  an'  art  vanish?  .  .  .  and  wot  about  butter-nuts 
an'  shredded  toasties  an'  triple-extract  of  beef?  .  .  .  ain't 
I  tried  animal  and  vegetable?  Ain't  I  dotty  trying  to  sell 
things  that  nobody  wants  .  .  .?"  And  then  to  Finn's  ter- 


224  GODS 

ror  and  sorrow  his  father  broke  down  into  sobs  that  shook  him 
as  tfiough  he  had  been  a  child. 

Finn  groped  after  the  memory  of  something  which  it  brought 
— and  there  came  again  the  day  of  the  hunger-line.  It  was  the 
same  protest,  weak,  unavailing,  against  life  as  it  was  lived. 

Ginger,  who  had  stolen  in  again  to  fetch  an  imaginary  duster, 
which  she  metaphysically  explained,  "  'ad  been  there  when  she 
was  there  before,  but  it  'ad  been  dark  an'  she  wasn't  quite 
sure  .  .  ."  relieved  the  situation  and  herself  by  saying  in 
one  of  her  audible  whispers:  "Blarst  that  Buldger!"  which 
met  with  such  a  unanimous  roar  of  disapproval  that  Jemmy's 
shaking  shoulders  had  time  to  recover  their  equipoise. 

"Why  can't  Finn  stop  his  writing  nonsense  and  earn  some 
money  like  other  young  men?" 

It  was  Aunt  Bella  who  spoke,  with  that  tremor  in  her  voice 
which  during  the  last  year  had  been  increasing.  All  eyes 
slewed  round  to  Finn,  who  had  been  thinking  as  the  others 
had  talked. 

He  had  been  thinking  of  his  hopeless  struggle  for  journalis- 
tic recognition — the  miserable  pot-boilers — the  odd  five  shill- 
ings he  got  for  the  news  pars  to  which  he  sometimes  descended 
—that  high-water  point  of  "The  Imperialist"  which  paid  him, 
sometimes,  and  when  he  could  collect  it,  seven  shillings  and 
sixpence  a  column.  There  was  Crux,  the  grey  vista  of  the  life 
of  the  city  clerk,  and  Deirdre,  to  the  hem  of  whose  dress  he 
did  not  dare  to  lift  his  eyes  even  though  at  heart  he  thought 
himself  good  enough  for  the  Queen  of  Heaven.  And  there  was 
that  devil  of  a  twisted  girl  who  tormented  him.  There  was 
that  Socialism  and  those  Socialist  meetings  in  which  he  had 
not  found  himself  or  it — the  compass  of  life  for  which  he  was 
searching.  ...  It  was  into  this  that  the  question  had  in- 
serted itself: 

"Why  can't  Finn  stop  his  writing  nonsense  and  earn  some 
money  like  other  young  men?" 

He  was  about  to  reply  when  there  came  a  double  knock  on 
the  street  door  which  was  immediately  opened  by  a  Ginger  who 
had  had  eye  or  ear  glued  to  the  keyhole  of  the  room  during  the 
whole  of  the  conference. 

A  telegram. 

The  little  golden  envelope  sent  that  thrill  through  them 
which  such  things  always  did.  It  was  from  Crux. 


FAITH  AND  FINANCE  225 

"Must  leave  for  Black  Rock  immediately.  Strike  trouble. 
Crux." 

Instantly  all  their  troubles  were  forgotten.  It  was  that 
"good  Mr.  Crux"  and  "the  boy's  fortune  is  as  good  as  made." 
Everything  was  forgotten.  In  some  unexplained  way  that  tele- 
gram was  going  to  change  the  fortunes  of  the  Fontaines.  If  it 
had  been  a  letter  it  would  have  meant  nothing.  But  a  telegram ! 

Finn  alone  was  unmoved.  He  was  beginning  to  learn  his 
lesson  of  life. 


XXII 

SOULS  RECALCITRANT 

Finn  returned  to  find  Black  Rock,  not  "fermenting,"  as  Crux 
had  put  it,  but  dourly  sure  of  itself.  He  had  been  met  at 
Dunhallow  by  Johnny  the  Saint,  who  had  greeted  him  with: 
"Glory  be  to  God!  but  'tis  you  have  the  makin's  of  a  fine 
man,  Masther  Finn,  yer  honour." 

It  was  always  his  franking  into  Ireland.  If  Johnny  had 
not  been  at  the  station  to  meet  him  he  would  have  felt  that 
something  was  missing. 

Kitty,  who  was  crouched  over  the  fire  in  the  kitchen  look- 
ing into  the  depths  of  her  black  teapot,  refused  to  let  him  come 
near  her,  glancing  up  at  him  sideways  in  the  crabbed  way  that 
she  had.  "You're  too  big,"  she  said.  "You're  not  a  little  boy 
any  longer.  You're  a  man.  A  nasty  big  man — bad  luck  to 
them,  and  may  God  forgive  me  for  swearing  and  sure  isn't  it 
meself  that  ought  to  know  them  with  their  cavortings  and  their 
blandishments  when  they  used  to  be  round  me  them  times  I 
was  known  as  Kitty  the  Divil,  like  bees  round  a  honeypot. 
Sure,  didn't  they  write  verses,  beautiful  verses  to  me  feet?" 
She  looked  down  at  her  nobbly  fundaments,  complacent,  "and 
what  they  said  about  me  hair  and  eyes  would  fill  a  long  book. 

"Ah,  g'long  wid  yez,"  she  broke  off  indignantly,  as  she 
caught  the  look  in  Finn's  eye,  "you  that  ought  to  be  ashamed 
to  know  about  such  things — ah,  and  let  me  tell  ye,  things  that 
for  all  your  laughing  were  wance  worth  lookin'  at  and  throubled 
the  rest  of  honest  men;  and  sure  wasn't  there  Mr.  Asthar  only 
the  other  day  .  .  ."  She  struck  her  forehead  with  a  free 
hand.  "Ah,  but  what  is  it  I'm  sayin'?  Sure,  'tis  the  divil 
that  must  still  be  in  me.  G'long  wid  yez!  'tis  your  fault,"  she 
said,  as  she  made  a  distant  pass  at  Johnny,  who  all  this  time 
had  stood  a  little  in  the  background,  Finn's  bag  in  his  hands, 
all  his  love  in  his  eyes.  "G'long  wid  yez,"  she  said  again  to 

226 


SOULS  RECALCITRANT  227 

that  unfortunate,  "why  can't  you  shave  the  moss  off  of  your 
face  like  a  decent  Christian  man?" 

"Sure,  didn't  our  Lord  have  it?"  asked  Johnny,  simply. 

The  little  angry  eyes  lighted  up  at  him  and  dropped  again 
into  the  teapot.  Kitty  the  Divil  crossed  herself  silently. 

"You'll  have  a  cup  of  tea,  Johnny,"  said  she.  "I've  made 
it  hot  and  strong." 

It  was  after  tea  that  Father  Con,  in  one  of  those  friendly 
conversations,  when  the  laughing  priest  could  be  more  serious 
than  any  man  he  knew,  had  tried  to  advise  him. 

"Don't  try  to  fight  the  Black  Rock  Turks,  Finn,  my  boy. 
Don't  be  tryin'  to  imagine  that  because  Mr.  Crux  is  a  big  man 
in  the  great  world  that  he  is  a  big  man  in  Ireland.  Ireland 
has  the  way  of  making  the  little  great,  and  the  great,  little 
.  .  .  which,  indeed,  was  the  way  of  our  Blessed  Lord.  Black 
Rock  doesn't  care  a  traithnin  about  Crux,  though  it  won't  be 
sayin'  'No'  to  his  money.  So  don't  try  and  fight  them,  Finn." 

Finn  smiled  to  himself  as  he  heard  the  priest.  Fight  the 
Black  Rock  Turks?  Fight  those  great  swarth  men  who  feared 
only  God  and  devil.  He  was  not  that  kind  of  fool.  He  left 
that  to  the  Slicks  and  the  Cruxes.  Yet  he  knew  that  if  he 
failed,  Crux  would  either  still  keep  him  at  his  poverty-stricken 
wage  or  throw  him  out.  And  he  was  so  tired  of  his  poor  clothes 
and  of  the  repressions  of  poverty.  They  made  him  ashamed. 

Crux's  engineer,  Busby,  explained  it  all  to  him,  in  his  high 
voice.  "They  don't  like  organisation,"  he  said.  "And  as  for 
'speeding-up,'  they  don't  understand  it.  I've  speeded  up  Eng- 
lishmen and  Scotsmen  and  Welshmen — and,  of  course,  I've 
done  my  bit  on  Americans — but  these  people  here — they're 
uncivilised — they  simply  don't  understand  it  ...  and  I 
think  they're  dangerous,"  he  added  after  a  moment j  as  though 
something  had  just  dawned  upon  him. 

It  seemed  that  the  men  with  their  womenfolk  had  reverted 
to  the  pre-Crux  period,  doing  a  little  fishing  and  a  little  farming 
and  a  little  salvage — with  a  little  life-saving  in  between,  for 
there  were  many  wrecks  on  that  iron  coast.  The  Cruxian 
towers  for  smoking  the  herrings  did  not  smoke,  but  stood  in  all 
their  high  square  ugliness,  like  Crux's  steam  trawlers,  deserted 
Black  Rock  had  gone  back  to  its  "hookers,"  turning  its  heavy 
fustianed  back  upon  the  blessings  of  Crux's  steam.  But  though 
Black  Rock  didn't  care  for  Crux's  steam  it  still  used  his  pier. 


228  GODS 

As  for  the  chapel  of  the  Primitive  Christians  Free — it  stood 
up  there  shunned  as  though  it  had  contained  the  Seven 
Plagues.  There  was  not  a  cotter  in  Black  Rock  so  poor  or  so 
low  that  he  would  take  the  Reverend  Slick's  loaves  and  fishes. 
As  for  Crux,  if  he  could  have  visited  Black  Rock  he  would 
have  had  some  curious  lights  thrown  upon  the  Cruxian  philos- 
ophy. 

To  Finn  it  all  seemed  a  strange  inconsequent  echo  of  the  in- 
creasing thunders  of  those  rebel  movements  out  there  in  the 
great  world.  Even  here  in  nationalist  Ireland,  the  last  home 
of  conservative  patriotism,  the  echoes  of  democracy  were 
making  themselves  heard.  Politic  and  religion  here  as  else- 
where were  clashing  and  disintegrating  and  a  new  faith  form- 
ing itself,  nebulous,  from  the  disintegration.  Even  Father 
Hennessey  had  been  unable  to  force  the  members  of  his  flock 
back  to  work  for  Crux,  despite  his  threat  of  the  terrors  ecclesi- 
astical. In  vain  had  he  pointed  out  the  danger  to  their  pockets 
in  this  world  and  to  their  souls  in  the  world  to  come  if  they 
cut  off  the  means  by  which  the  chapel  of  their  faith  might 
be  repaired  and  that  stained  glass  window  placed  behind  the 
high  altar.  Deep  in  their  hearts  lay  a  faith  indomitable  over 
which  even  he  was  powerless. 

They  paid  their  church  dues;  they  went  to  confession;  they 
were  docile  to  the  teachings  of  their  shepherd — but  they  would 
no  more  work  for  Crux  than  they  would  enter  his  tabernacle  or 
accept  his  loaves  and  fishes.  They  were  tired  of  civilisation. 

Already  Finn  was  discovering  that  Protestant  North  and 
Catholic  South  had  begun  to  fraternise  upon  democratic  labour 
platforms,  losing  something  of  the  acerbity  of  religious  outline 
in  the  process.  Already,  there  Had  been  what  was  known  as 
the  Maynooth  revolt — the  revolt  of  the  younger  clerics  against 
the  claims  of  the  elder  to  decide  their  politics  as  their  religion. 
"We'll  take  our  religion  from  Rome,  but  our  politics  from  hell 
or  Constantinople!"  one  of  them  had  said,  and  in  the  saying, 
as  was  the  way  in  Ireland  with  its  fateful  phrase-making,  had 
seemed  to  set  the  seal  upon  a  new  religion.  And  sometimes  it 
came  to  him  that  Democracy  everywhere  was  becoming  a  re- 
ligion and  like  the  others  was  developing,  perhaps  had  already 
developed,  its  dogmas,  its  "authorities,"  and,  in  a  sense,  its 
gods,  which  in  its  dawning  it  had  called  "Liberty,  Equality  and 


SOULS  RECALCITRANT  229 

Fraternity,"  and  now  was  adding  to  them  the  Vote,  with  its 
Divine  Right  of  Majority. 

But  behind  the  revolt  of  the  fishermen,  Finn  quickly  felt 
an  invincible  will.  At  the  beginning,  he  had  tried  in  a  way, 
having  no  heart  in  his  work,  to  bend  Black  Rock  to  Crux's  will, 
but  after  a  time  the  struggle  had  become  very  real — only  that 
it  had  become  a  struggle  not  between  him  and  Black  Rock, 
but  between  him  and  the  will  that  stood  behind. 

Upon  his  coming  to  the  House  of  Dreams,  where  Mrs. 
O'Hara  had  received  him  with  anxiety  in  her  eyes  and  the 
shake-hands  that  was  like  a  caress,  where  he  had  found  Patsey 
as  usual  in  his  corner,  his  head  heavy  with  dreams,  he  had 
also  found  Deirdre  Asthar,  a  hollow-cheeked,  hollow-eyed 
Deirdre,  with  something  of  desperation  in  her  look. 

It  was  she  who  had  matched  herself  against  Crux  and  against 
Crux's  lieutenant,  as  he  learned  from  Father  Hennessey,  who 
was  deeply  indignant  .  .  .  "and  she  a  heretic,"  he  had 
said,  forgetting  Finn  for  the  moment.  It  was  she  who  had 
preached  revolt,  showing  the  fishermen  how  the  contracts  they 
had  signed  had  put  them  in  thrall  to  Crux.  She  had,  it  ap- 
peared, been  holding  meetings  up  in  the  deserted  schoolhouse. 

The  Reverend  Slick  had  responded  with  one  of  his  periodical 
floods  of  tracts,  but  all  in  the  way  of  business,  which  were  as 
incomprehensible  to  the  Black  Rock  cabins  as  though  they  had 
been  written  in  Chinese,  although,  when  faith  was  mixed  with 
finance,  Black  Rock  saw  the  humour  of  it. 

To  make  matters  still  worse,  everything  connected  with  Crux 
was  under  excommunication.  His  engineers  and  his  specially 
imported  workmen  could  get  neither  bite  of  bread  nor  drop  of 
water.  When  they  addressed  themselves  to  these  queer  people, 
they  found  them  to  be  both  deaf  and  dumb.  The  English  work- 
men, decent,  well-dressed,  well-set  up  men,  found  to  their 
astonishment  that  the  very  founts  of  feminine  nature  had  dried, 
no  girl  of  the  village  either  speaking  when  spoken  to  or  appar- 
ently being  aware  of  male  existence.  Even  in  Dunhallow  it 
was  a  matter  of  difficulty  to  get  anything  in  the  way  of  food, 
and  all  appeals  to  Crux's  ally,  Father  Hennessey,  were  use- 
less: "Arrah,  don't  be  botherin'  me!"  this  whiskey-loving 
prelate  had  said  at  last  in  flaring  anger,  as  he  rubbed  up  the 
red  knobs  in  his  high  angry  forehead  with  a  red  bandana  hand- 
kerchief, "sure  can't  ye  see  I'm  as  helpless  as  yourselves  with 


230  GODS 

these  contrairy  divils  .  .  .  and  I  don't  blame  them,"  he 
had  added  illogically. 

That  had  always  been  the  difficulty  with  the  Irishman  of  any 
type.  "You  never  knew  where  you  had  him,"  Mr.  Busby,  the 
engineer,  said. 

But  to  Finn  there  came  all  that  old  irritation  as  he  felt  the 
girl  behind.  The  battle  quickly  developed  into  a  personal 
struggle  between  him  and  Deirdre.  After  a  time,  almost  for- 
getting the  origin  of  the  quarrel,  he  ignored  the  fishermen,  who 
watched  his  efforts  with  that  dark  humour  of  the  Southern 
Celt,  fully  aware  that  he  hated  the  job  and  sympathising  with 
him  as  fully,  showing  their  personal  esteem  by  bringing  him 
all  sorts  of  little  gifts — newlaid  eggs,  a  little  "print"  butter, 
and  so  on,  and  there  where  the  tides  roared  around  Car- 
rickdhuv  lying  in  mid-channel,  risking  their  lives  to  get  him 
seagull's  eggs,  of  which  to  their  unconcealed  amazement  he  was 
very  fond,  getting  Mrs.  O'Hara  to  cook  them  for  his  breakfast. 

Finn,  at  last,  torn  between  love  and  hate  for  the  girl  who 
had  defeated  him,  went  back  to  London  with  failure  writ  large. 

"Look  at  the  money  I  have  put  into  Black  Rock — and  for 
those  people's  good.  I've  put  my  faith  and  my  money  in  this 
thing.  Save  them!"  Crux  had  commanded,  the  steel  jaw  set- 
ting like  a  trap  in  the  mechanism  of  the  skull.  "If  you  don't — 
you're  fired." 


XXIII 

THE  SOUL  OF  A  NATION 

When  Finn  next  returned  to  Dunhallow,  under  April  skies 
in  which  tear  and  smile  blended,  it  was  to  the  boom  of  drum 
and  the  pierce  of  fife.  As  his  train  ran  across  the  tideway, 
he  could  see  the  white  limestone  roads  under  the  warm  April 
sun  that  disrobed  itself  gradually  from  its  mists,  checkered  with 
the  shapes  of  men  walking,  above  their  heads  the  emerald  of 
banner  and  the  gleam  of  golden  cord,  all  converging  upon  one 
spot.  It  was  from  Johnny  he  discovered  that  "the  country 
was  up."  It  was  all  about  a  right  of  way  leading  from  nothing 
to  nowhere,  a  roundabout  path  which  no  one  used  or  ever 
wanted  to  use,  but  from  which  old  Asthar,  who  owned  the 
property  through  which  it  ran,  had  turned  an  old  peasant 
woman. 

One  of  the  Irish  members  had  been  expelled  after  raising 
the  question  first  by  tongue  then  by  fist  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, "a  question,"  according  to  him,  "not  only  of  national 
import  to  Ireland,  but  to  the  British  Empire,  involving  as  it 
does  ..."  The  whole  country  was  aflame  with  tar-bar- 
rels, whilst  each  night  beacon  fires  on  the  high  mountains 
ringed  the  island  in  a  circle  of  flames. 

Neither  Father  Con  nor  Kitty  were  at  home.  They,  like 
everybody  else,  "had  gone  to  the  demonstration." 

It  all  seemed  trivial  enough,  only  that  Finn  had  learned 
one  lesson  in  Ireland — that  in  Ireland  it  was  never  the  appar- 
ent but  the  real  that  mattered — not  the  thing  on  the  outside, 
but  the  thing  behind. 

This  path,  like  so  many  other  things  in  the  island,  was  sym- 
bolic. It  wasn't  the  path,  nobody  cared  a  thought  for  the 
path  or  even  for  old  Asthar,  it  was  for  something  that  seemed 
to  stand  behind  both.  Johnny  had  said:  "It  isn't  the  path, 
Masther  Finn,  nor  even  ould  Biddy  Byrne"  (that  was  the  old 

231 


232  GODS 

peasant  woman),  "we'd  be  carin'  about — 'tisn't  for  them  that 
we're  fightin' — but  for  Ireland."  And  his  eyes  had  lighted  up 
like  those  of  Finn's  father  when  he  was  roused  about  some- 
thing. 

Men,  women  and  children  surged  past  Father  Con's  house, 
headed  by  bands  of  men  in  green  caps  and  sashes,  blowing  furi- 
ously into  their  fifes  and  beating  their  drums  until  the  very 
sides  of  the  houses  gave  back  the  dull  reverberations.  Irish  ter 
riers  and  mongrels  of  unknown  breed  skirmished  through  the 
riot.  Man  and  animal,  urged  by  some  irresistible  force,  were 
pouring  into  the  old  grey  square  along  the  four  streets  which 
fed  it  like  channels.  Finn  could  no  more  resist  that  drag  and 
thrust  than  the  green  tide  running  under  the  sandstone  bridge 
could  resist  the  drag  and  thrust  of  the  moon.  Presently  he 
found  himself  sucked  into  the  square  as  through  a  gullet.  He 
might  have  been  sucked  into  a  great  maw. 

From  where  he  stood  perilously  on  the  stone  trough  of  the 
old  pump  in  the  middle  of  the  square,  before  the  stark  timber 
platform  with  its  drapings  of  green  as  though  it  had  been  a 
great  altar,  ringed  by  the  emerald  banners  with  the  Irish  in- 
scriptions, he  was  able  to  see  over  the  square,  now  a  bobbing 
mass  of  heads  and  pinky  faces  and  the  white  of  eyeballs.  Into 
this  conglomeration  there  would  every  now  and  then  surge 
from  one  of  the  four  main  roads  leading  into  the  place  a  cur- 
rent of  men  as  a  tide  race  runs  into  a  harbour.  And  now  the 
shrill  of  fife  was  mingled  with  the  blare  of  brass  rebellious,  two 
bands  marching  in,  one  after  the  other,  to  circle  the  square  in 
sheer  flamboyance,  the  eyes  of  the  cornetists  staring,  the  ranks 
of  the  kettle  drums  rattling  like  machine  guns,  and  above  all 
the  zoom  of  the  big  drum  and  smash  of  cymbals  like  the  ex- 
plosions of  heavy  artillery.  Above,  the  sun  shone  down  through 
the  mists  of  the  afternoon,  shone  upon  all  this  yeasty  humanity 
which  seemed  to  ferment  into  new  life  under  its  rays. 

It  was  as  though  the  sun  overhead,  the  author  of  all  life, 
pulsing  up  there  like  a  heart  in  the  grey-blue  skies  of  Ireland, 
sent  with  each  pulsation  its  life-streams  to  earth,  only  to  catch 
them  up  once  more  after  they  had  done  their  work. 

Every  window  in  the  square  was  living  with  faces.  The 
green  flags,  hanging  down  from  each  window,  quartered  with 
colour  the  grey  fagades  of  the  houses.  And  from  out  of  that 
square  pit,  the  boom  of  drum,  the  blare  of  brass  and  the  shrill 


THE  SOUL  OF  A  NATION  233 

of  fife,  mingled  with  strident  cheer  and  murmur  of  voices, 
went  up  to  the  heavens  above  like  a  prayer. 

It  came  to  Finn,  not  as  a  political  demonstration,  but  as  a 
service  to  some  unknown  God.  And  now  the  high  green  altar 
was  filling  with  people,  towering  amongst  them  Father  Con, 
who,  as  he  looked,  moved  to  the  square  boarded  rostrum.  And 
in  that  instant  the  murmuring  of  the  crowd  like  the  roar  of  sea 
upon  rock  was  stilled. 

He  stood  there  under  the  shadow  of  the  grey  walls,  bare- 
headed. And  his  lips  moved  as  though  in  prayer,  every  head 
there  uncovered  before  the  soundless  invocation.  Finn,  look- 
ing down  upon  that  sea  of  heads,  saw  them  as  ranks  of  wor- 
shippers, their  eyes  fixed  upon  that  tall  figure  as  the  Children 
of  Israel  might  have  looked  upon  Moses.  The  big  priest  bent 
over  the  edge  of  the  rail  and  beckoned  downwards  to  those  on 
the  platform  behind.  And  as  Finn  looked,  he  saw  the  slight 
figure  and  the  green  dress  with  the  tousled  hair  of  bronze  he 
knew  so  well. 

It  was  Deirdre  Asthar  who  had  mounted  to  the  railed  space. 

He  could  never  remember  the  exact  words  of  the  bare-headed 
girl  as  she  stood  there  with  the  sun  shining  upon  her  like  a  halo. 
He  was  conscious  of  the  opening  of  the  firm  red  lips,  the 
steadily  increasing  pallor  of  the  face — for  she,  like  himself, 
was  of  the  sort  that  pales  under  emotion — and  of  that  all-en- 
veloping silence  about  her.  She  was  no  longer  Deirdre  Asthar, 
the  being  of  flesh  and  blood  whom  he  loved,  but  a  priestess, 
holy,  sacrosanct. 

To  each  affirmation  of  the  slender  figure  on  the  platform 
came  the  answering  affirmation  from  the  crowd  below  like  a 
great  Amen,  as  though  they  were  chaunting  a  litany.  Again  and 
again  the  great  "Amen"  swelled  upwards,  to  be  followed  by  a 
silence. 

And  then  something  had  murmured  through  the  crowd  which 
began  to  sway  in  the  sunlight.  It  stirred  the  hairs  upon  his 
head.  And  the  murmur  had  changed  to  something  deeper, 
menacing.  And  now  the  mass  before  him  seemed  to  tremble 
as  wave  on  wave  of  some  silent  resistless  force  came  shuddering 
through  it.  And  there  had  fallen  another  of  those  silences  in 
which  he  could  feel  his  heart  beating  in  his  veins  as  though  it 
had  been  the  heart  of  the  great  crowd  of  which  he  was  now 


234  GODS 

a  part,  or  of  that  still  greater  burning  heart  that  hung  in  the 
skies  above  him. 

It  was  when  the  silence  had  reached  its  deepest,  as  though 
the  low  solitary  note  of  some  great  organ  were  breathing  be- 
neath, that  there  came  from  far  away  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
crowd  a  single  voice.  And  it  was  this  voice  which  seemed 
to  loose  the  spirit  that  had  been  crouching  under  the  silence. 
And  then  the  note,  taking  volume,  came  like  the  rolling  of 
thunder,  with  crash  on  crash  of  cheer  like  the  smash  of  light- 
ning when  it  strikes,  until,  at  last,  all  the  waters  of  sea  and 
sky  seemed  to  have  run  together  as  the  figure  on  the  high-railed 
space  had  disappeared. 

Here  was  neither  passion  nor  politic,  but  the  Thing  Be- 
hind all  passion  and  all  politic.  Here  was  the  soul  of  a  peo- 
ple in  travail — evolution  itself.  Not  for  the  first  time  it  seemed 
to  Finn  that  all  things  ran  together.  Was  it  that  Nationalism 
and  Internationalism  were  but  facets  of  the  same  diamond — 
that  all  these  warrings  of  nation  against  nation  and  of  class 
against  class  were  not  for  the  things  for  which  the  contestants 
believed  they  fought,  but  were  simply  urges  from  the  thing 
behind? 


XXIV 


Finn  drove  out  under  the  night  skies  to  Mrs.  O'Hara's,  his 
heart  aflame  with  new  emotions.  Above  him,  on  distant 
Croagh  Cromlech,  the  bale-fires  after  the  demonstration  blazed 
under  a  firmament  of  stars  chastened  by  immense  distance.  He 
was  both  puzzled  and  angry — puzzled  to  find  that  a  narrow 
nationalism  should  have  power  to  move  him,  for  by  now  Finn, 
who  had  come  into  closer  contact  with  "the  movement,"  as  the 
left  wing  of  democracy  was  being  rather  grandiloquently  and 
exclusively  called,  had,  under  the  administrations  of  the  Rev- 
erend John  Burring  and  Jock  MacAdam,  begun  to  have  vague 
ideas  about  Internationalism. 

Had  he  never  gone  to  Ireland  he  might  now  have  been  a 
Socialist.  But  to  him  at  least,  nationalism  and  international- 
ism were  not  the  complements  but  the  opposites  of  each  other. 
Even  the  Red  Flag  had  not  the  power  to  thrill  and  hold  that 
the  Green  Flag  had.  Yet  one  stood  for  a  narrow,  national  God 
— the  other  for  no  God  at  all  ...  unless  there  was  an 
International  God. 

It  was  as  though  two  powerful  spirits  were  battling  in  his 
heart  for  its  possession.  From  his  seat  on  the  side-car,  look- 
ing out  over  the  darkened  waters  of  the  bay,  wraithed  by  the 
silvery  mists  of  night,  it  seemed  to  him  that  Ireland  was  a 
sleeping  breathing  thing,  calling  to  him  in  her  dreams.  She 
was  a  woman  of  dark  eyes  and  tousled  hair,  calling  to  him: 
"Will  you  not  give  up  the  world  for  me?  I  am  more  than  the 
world.  Will  you  not  come  to  me?"  And  then  he  saw  it  was 
the  face  of  Deirdre  Asthar. 

He  wanted  to  throw  himself  from  the  car  down  over  the 
cliffs  into  the  misty  waters  below  and  lose  himself  in  the  arms 
of  his  mistress. 

On  the  road  before  them  he  saw  a  figure  walking,  its  cloak 

235 


236  GODS 

thrown  back  from  its  shoulders,  its  head  bare.  Very  straight 
and  slenderly  it  walked  before  them  upon  the  highway,  its  hat 
in  its  hand.  Under  the  witchery  of  the  Irish  night  he  could 
see,  as  the  car  drove  past,  two  eyes  that  gleamed  like  stars 
looking  straight  before  them.  Sudden  resolution  came. 

"Go  back,  Johnny,  boy,"  he  said  to  the  driver.  "I'll  walk 
the  rest."  He  sprang  from  the  car,  which  drove  back  to  Dun- 
hallow. 

He  waited  for  the  girl  to  come  up  to  him,  and  said: 

"I  heard  you  speak  in  the  square  today  and  I  wanted  so 
much  to  tell  you  what  I  thought."  There  was  something  about 
her  that  made  him  want  to  throw  himself  upon  the  white  lime- 
stone road  before  her. 

The  girl  smiled  at  him  a  little,  with  that  strange  veiled  look 
to  which  he  was  now  accustomed.  She  did  not  speak. 

"It  was  splendid,  magnificent,"  he  burst  out.  "Now  I 
know  why  you  love  Ireland.  I  love  her,  too."  He  spoke  with 
all  the  fresh  impulse  of  the  day  upon  him  and  with  the 
magic  of  the  night  over  all. 

"Do  you?"  she  said  indifferently.  "What  will  you  give  up 
for  Ireland?" 

"Give  up?"  he  said  stupidly,  as  though  that  had  never  come 
to  him.  He  felt  chilled  and  irritated.  "What  should  I  give 
up?" 

"Give  up  what  you  call  your  Internationalism,"  she  said. 

"But  that  is  to  give  up  the  world." 

"If  you  won't  give  up  the  world  for  your  country,  your 
country  doesn't  want  you,"  the  girl  countered.  "Ireland  is  a 
proud  mistress.  She  demands  all." 

Again  there  came  the  longing  unreasoning  to  throw  himself 
there  on  the  white  road  before  her — the  longing  to  worship  and 
to  yield.  The  scent  of  her  hair  was  in  his  nostrils,  her  beauti- 
ful presence  enveloped  him.  He  did  not  know  whether  it  was 
Ireland  or  Deirdre  Asthar  he  loved.  In  a  way,  they  were 
one  and  the  same  thing. 

A  sea  bird  cried  far  beneath.  The  loneliness  of  life  came 
to  him  poignantly.  If  this  girl  by  his  side  would,  could  love 
him — he  would  not  be  afraid,  although  he  had  never  thought  of 
her  loving  him.  He  only  thought  of  giving — not  taking.  He 
felt  afraid  up  there  on  that  road  high  over  the  sea  as  though 
he  were  on  the  roof  of  the  world  itself. 


"THIRTY  PIECES  OF  SILVER"  237 

The  moon  began  to  rise  over  the  lip  of  the  sea,  a  moon  of 
monstrous  orange,  a  moon  of  passion  and  life.  He  looked  into 
the  blood-red  heart  of  it  and  then  at  the  girl,  her  eyes  now 
misty  under  the  new  light.  As  she  walked  he  could  see  the  two 
firm  breasts  that  showed  themselves  under  the  stuff  of  her 
dress.  There  was  something  in  the  night  that  was  unbearable. 

They  were  passing  the  place  where  she  had  once  knelt  over 
little  Paudeen. 

"Do  you  remember  that  day  with  little  Paudeen?"  he  asked, 
turning  to  steal  a  glance  at  her.  She  looked  at  him,  fleetingly, 
surprised.  "It  was  that  day,  as  you  bent  over  him  that  some- 
thing snapped  in  my  heart.  It  was  that  day  that  I  first 
glimpsed  Ireland  and  what  she  meant  to  me.  And  it  was 
through  you  that  I  glimpsed  her  .  .  ."  He  waited,  fear- 
ing. This  girl  could  be  so  unresponsive. 

A  figure  had  risen  from  the  grey  stone  where  Paudeen 's 
mother  had  laid  him  that  day.  It  limped  over  to  them  with 
the  little  deep  blackbird  chuckle  he  knew  so  well  and  a  "Good 
evening,  my  dears!"  It  was  Stella  Fay,  who  was  again  in 
Ireland. 

"I  had  come  out  for  a  walk  to  see  the  rising  of  the  moon," 
she  said.  "How  did  the  meeting  go,  Deirdre?" 

The  girl  was  silent. 

"It  went  splendidly,"  Finn  answered.  "It  was  the  best 
demonstration  I  have  ever  seen."  But  he  wondered  whilst 
he  said  it,  whether  she  had  heard. 

"What?  Better  than  those  Tower  Hill  and  Trafalgar  Square 
things?"  said  Stella.  "Surely  that  splendid  Internationalism 
of  which  lately  you  are  never  tired  of  talking,  can  beat  a  miser- 
able little  nationalist  meeting  in  a  little  Irish  town!"  Her  words 
were  mocking. 

Finn  walked  between  the  two  girls,  feeling  angry  at  both, 
and  at  himself.  There  was  a  new  note  in  Stella's  voice.  It 
was  like  the  hissing  of  a  man  when  he  sets  his  dog  at  another 
dog. 

But  the  girl  with  the  hair  of  copper  walked  at  his  side  with 
that  curious  glide  as  though  unconscious.  She  had,  in  the 
preceding  months  in  London,  been  making  rather  fierce  love  to 
him  ...  or  perhaps  it  was  he  who  had  been  making  fierce 
love  to  her.  That,  he  could  never  decide,  for  she  had  a  way 
of  coming  forward  as  the  hunter  and  drawing  'back  as  the 


238  GODS 

hunted,  filling  him  with  desire  intolerable,  although  since  that 
day  when  she  had  drawn  the  child  from  the  sea  they  had  never 
kissed.  When  he  was  alone  with  Deirdre,  this  girl  seemed  dis- 
gusting to  him.  When  by  himself,  he  alternated  between  sav- 
age longing  and  repulsion.  When  with  both  of  them  together 
he  hated  both. 

As  they  came  to  the  opening  into  the  boreen,  all  at  once 
he  missed  Stella  from  his  side,  and,  as  he  paused,  uncertain, 
he  heard  her  mocking  laugh  from  the  other  side  of  the  red 
hawthorn  with  its  scented  blossom,  behind  which  she  had  slip- 
ped. It  was  one  of  her  queer  ways,  elfish  of  the  twilight,  for 
at  night  this  strange  creature  seemed  to  take  on  new  vitality; 
new  lights  would  come  into  those  grey  eyes,  and  she  loved 
at  these  moments  to  play  tricks  on  him. 

"She  must  have  gone  to  swim  under  Carrickmore,"  he  said 
to  Deirdre,  who  stood  silently  by.  "She  is  quite  tireless  in  the 
water.  She  has  no  fear.  She  swims  there  every  night,  going 
out  into  the  deep  sea,  although  she  has  been  warned  of  the 
tides  by  the  fishermen  who  since  that  day  she  saved  Paudeen, 
worship  her."  And  then  he  flushed,  remembering  that  day 
of  the  saving  of  little  Paudeen  and  Deirdre's  terror. 

She  said  nothing,  but  her  face  gleamed  like  a  white  flower 
in  the  starshine  that  sifted  through  the  hawthorn  blossoms. 

Finn  looked  at  her  and  caught  the  pallor  of  her  face.  It 
filled  him  with  a  great  pity. 

"I  didn't  mean  that,"  he  stammered,  all  the  blood  of  his 
body  rushing  to  his  face. 

He  found  the  girl  looking  at  him  in  astonished  anger,  her 
head  held  proudly  up  and  back  a  trifle. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about,"  she  said.  "Do 
you?"  she  added  in  cold  insult. 

"You  never  seem  to  think  I  know  anything,"  Finn  said,  the 
blood  flying  from  his  cheeks  at  her  insult.  Out  of  the  dis- 
tance came  a  mocking  laugh.  Something  was  urging  him  on. 
And  now  the  blood  had  come  back  to  thunder  in  his  ears. 

"You  have  always  disdained  me  or  laughed  at  me  since  that 
day  when  I  first  saw  you  at  Thrum's.  You  think  I  am  not  good 
enough  for  you.  You  despise  my  poverty.  You  have  tried  to 
make  me  ashamed  .  .  ." 

He  paused  an  instant  to  catch  those  eyes  fixed  on  him  with  a 


"THIRTY  PIECES  OF  SILVER"  239 

look  that  was  full  of  something — a  message  suppressed.  But 
he  would  not  listen  to  the  eyes.  He  went  on: 

"You  despise  me  because  I  am  an  Internationalist — because 
I  stand  up  for  the  common  people."  (But  he  knew  as  he  said 
it  that  he  was  uncertain  both  about  the  one  and  the  other.) 
"You  pity  your  puny  nationalism  of  one  country,"  he  felt  very 
mean  as  he  said  it,  "against  the  world.  I  am  bigger  than  you," 
he  said,  grandiloquent.  "My  country  is  the  world,  and  as  for 
my  God  .  .  ." 

"My  God,"  put  in  the  girl  quietly,  as  he  paused,  "is  a  na- 
tional God,  not  a  thing  of  no  nation."  Her  eyes  gleamed  me- 
tallic in  the  moonlight  as  though  it  had  shone  on  the  wing  of 
a  beetle. 

"You  talk  of  your  nation,"  he  said  angrily,  forgeting  all  his 
impressions  of  the  day.  "Do  you  know  I  never  heard  any 
Irishman  either  at  Dunhallow  or  here  in  Black  Rock  say  a 
word  for  Ireland  until  to-day  in  the  square.  When  I  have 
spoken  to  them  about  nationality  they  have  been  either  silent 
or  laughing.  Their  nationality  is  a  thing  of  the  moment — £ 
thing  of  passion  and  impulse,  a  thing  of  unconsciousness"  He 
had  broken  off  in  savage  triumph  at  that  last  word  as  though  it 
were  annihilating.  She  was  unconscious.  Ireland  was  uncon- 
scious. He,  he,  Finn  Fontaine,  was  conscious. 

And  then  she  had  turned  to  him  and  had  said  in  low,  sure 
tones,  as  though  she  were  speaking  to  herself:  "Perhaps  you 
are  right.  I  had  never  thought  of  that.  And  you — you  have 
not  learned  that  the  unconscious  life  of  a  nation  is  its  deepest 
life.  Was  there  not  one  who  said:  'Let  Ireland  apostatise 
for  a  thousand  years;  let  all  her  sons  and  daughters  hold  their 
silence  when  you  speak  to  them  of  nationality;  let  them,  like 
Judas,  sell  their  Lord — that  is,  their  birthright — for  thirty 
pieces  of  silver  .  .  .  and  then,  even  then,  they  will  awake 
from  their  dream  and  the  unconscious  will  rise  above  the 
threshold  of  consciousness  to  confound  the  world.'  "  Her  eyes 
shone.  "And  you  know,  Mr.  Fontaine,"  she  had  added  with 
her  little  cold  smile:  "You  have  been  calling  yourself  an  Irish- 
man, but  you  have  been  trying  to  sell  your  countrymen  to 
Crux  for  a  little  more  than  thirty  pieces  of  silver — for  two 
pounds  a  week.  I  think  Judas  must  have  been  an  Irishman." 

And  so,  under  the  shadow  of  the  House  of  Dreams,  she  had 
turned  and  left  him.  He  found  himself  alone,  looking  into  the 


240  GODS 

eye  of  the  great  yellow  moon  as,  now  a  gold-laden  argosy,  it 
swung  out  of  the  sea  above  the  neighbouring  hill. 

He  plunged  down  the  boreen  into  the  silver  and  black  of  the 
night,  hurt,  angry.  His  mind  was  a  riot  of  idea — the  riot  in 
which  Deirdre  Asthar  so  often  left  him. 

So  what  had  come  from  lips  only  in  a  moment  of  anger, 
was  true.  She  had  despised  his  non-success,  and  with  that 
degenerate  self-pity  into  which  he  even  now  could  sometimes 
sink,  he  held  out  one  gaunt  arm  against  the  sky,  threatening 
heaven  with  his  poverty.  But  he  would  show  her.  He  would 
succeed.  He  would  succeed  because  he  hated  her  and  was 
finished  with  her. 

And  he  was  finished  with  Crux.  That  astonishing  resolu- 
tion came  to  him  there  under  the  night  skies.  He  was  finished 
with  all  that  shadow-dance  of  millions — finished  with  the 
city  and  with  its  dirty  commercialism.  He  was  not  a  business 
man.  He,  he,  Finn  Fontaine,  was  an  artist!  He  shouted  as 
resolution  came  to  him. 

Ireland.  What  was  Ireland  to  him?  Ireland  was  Deirdre 
Asthar.  He  was  finished  with  both.  Again  he  shouted  out 
into  the  night  challenging  high  heaven  with  his  raised  fist. 
For  the  moment  he  was  outside  himself. 

Internationalism  or  Nationalism?  What  did  they  matter? 
He  stood  for  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  He  stood  for  Finn 
Fontaine.  He  was  going  to  force  those  surging  thoughts  of 
his  out  into  the  world  at  the  point  of  his  pen.  He  would  write 
what  Thrum  wanted.  "The  Earth"  was  to  be  his  channel,  as 
the  earth  was  to  be  his  goal. 

He  had  plumbed  the  depths  of  a  girl's  heart.  It  was  shallow. 
She  had  called  him  "Judas."  "Judas."  He  repeated  the  word 
aloud.  Well,  he  would  be  Judas.  But  he  would  not  sell  him- 
self for  thirty  pieces  of  silver — he  would  sell  himself  for  gold 
and  for  power.  If  there  was  to  be  a  God  to  worship,  and  even 
in  that  moment,  tensioned  and  slightly  ridiculous  as  it  was, 
he  was  not  such  a  fool,  he  said  to  himself,  as  to  say  there 
was  no  God,  it  should  be  a  God  of  Gold  and  Power. 

What  a  fool  he  had  been.  He  had  disdained  delights  and 
lived  laborious  days — for  what?  He  had  disdained  the  girl 
with  the  bright  hair  and  the  scarlet  lips.  He  had  taken  her 
lips — that  once — but  not  herself.  He  had  kissed  her  that  day 


11  THIRTY  PIECES  OF  SILVER"  241 

down  by  the  waters  and  like  a  baby  he  had  let  her  make  love 
to  him  in  London.  He  would  not  only  kiss. 

And  he  laughed.  Laughed  as  though  he  had  thrown  some- 
thing from  his  back  in  that  moment.  Some  burden.  He  was 
free. 

He  was  passing  blindly  down  along  the  bottom  of  the  valley 
where  the  grass  grew  high  by  the  running  water  under  the 
softness  of  the  April  night,  when  he  heard  an  echo  of  his  laugh, 
and  even  before  he  saw  her,  caught  the  perfume  of  her  body. 

She  was  on  him  silently  as  was  her  custom  and  she  laughed 
again,  crouching  under  his  shoulder  and  looking  up  at  him  in 
the  way  that  she  had.  She  wore  a  dress  in  one  piece  of  the 
colour  and  texture  of  a  grey  wrinkled  poppy  that,  cut  away 
from  her  neck,  left  her  skin  shining  like  white  satin  under  the 
golden  moon.  The  glint  of  the  moonshine  was  caught  in  the 
great  knot  of  hair  done  low  on  the  nape.  She  clung  to  him 
as  she  slid  her  arm  through  his  and  as  she  pressed  his  arm  she 
laughed  low  again. 

They  were  alone  in  the  valley  save  for  the  full-throated  call 
of  a  song-bird  from  the  solitary  grove  above  them,  and  the 
speckled  foxgloves  hung  their  bells  as  they  passed. 

Her  hand  was  like  fire  on  his  arm.  Her  head  against  his 
side  seemed  to  burn  him.  And  yet  he  had  not  spoken — nor  had 
she. 

And  now  her  feet,  like  his,  were  laggard  on  the  green  lush 
grass,  and  they  had  stopped  for  her  to  slide  her  other  hand  up 
and  around  his  neck  to  pull  him  down  to  her.  He  felt  her 
breath  like  a  flame  upon  his  cheek  and  the  warmth  of  her 
body  came  through  her  thin  dress  as  she  clung  to  him. 

The  place  was  very  still.  But  some  night  insect  was  chirping 
somewhere  in  the  grass,  like  the  tick-tack  of  one  of  Patsey's 
fairy  cobblers,  whilst  from  the  meadow  above  there  came  the 
soft  cooing  of  the  wood  doves  and  the  lower  ventriloquial  note 
of  a  cuckoo.  The  trickle  of  the  water  in  his  ears  and  the  scent 
of  the  early  flowers  and  grasses,  to  mingle  with  that  scent 
which  might  have  been  the  perfume  of  her  clothes  or  the  es- 
sence of  herself. 

Her  face  turned  up  to  his  under  the  full  moon,  the  scarlet 
of  the  lips  parted,  inviting.  She  had  pulled  his  great  shoul- 
ders down  over  her  where  they  stood  under  an  ash  that  grew 


242  GODS 

lonely  in  that  spot.    And  his  lips  had  sought  hers  to  cling  to- 
gether in  an  ecstasy  of  living. 

She  was  twining  herself  about  him  and  he  was  losing  himself 
in  the  perfume  of  her  hair  and  her  melting  flesh,  in  that  fire 
and  snow  that  lay  in  his  arms,  when  from  the  shadows  above 
where  the  House  of  Dreams  clung  to  the  lip  of  the  valley,  there 
came  the  sound  of  a  lute  with  a  voice  singing: 

Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  play 

Out  in  the  mists  of  yesterday. 
Come,  dear  heart,  where   the  shadows  fall.  .  .  . 

The  girl  in  his  arms  had  trembled  as  the  voice  stole  down 
to  them  and  then  had  nestled  still  closer,  covering  his  lips  and 
eyes  with  her  kisses  as  though  to  keep  out  the  sound.  Her  eyes 
were  closed,  her  lips  sought  his  again  and  again,  the  long  slen- 
der arms  wound  themselves  about  him.  His  senses  were  cloud- 
ing, when  the  voice  came  again: 

Come,  dear  heart,  where  the  shadows  creep 
To  the  twilight  edge  of  to-morrow's  sleep  .  .  . 

He  struggled  a  little  in  her  arms.  But  she  would  not.  She 
laid  them  about  him  and  pulled  his  head  down  still  closer  to 
her.  He  felt  the  anaesthesia  of  the  night  stealing  over  him, 
lulling  him  to  forgetfullness,  when  low  and  sweet  the  voice 
came  again,  pulsing  downwards  through  the  night: 

Come,  dear  heart,  on  the  shadows'  flight 
As  we  whisper  together  the  last  Good-night.  .  .  . 

The  voice  was  calling  to  him  from  up  there.  He  could 
not  bear  it. 

With  a  last  effort  he  had  freed  himself  from  the  girl,  who, 
panting,  love-sick,  looked  at  him  with  heavy  languorous  eyes. 

And  then  he  had  fled  into  the  night. 


XXV 

IN  THE  MELTING  POT 

After  that  night  in  the  valley,  Finn  felt  that  once  more 
he  had  been  flung  into  the  melting  pot  of  doubt  from  which  he 
thought  he  had  escaped.  All  the  foundations  upon  which  he 
had  been  building  had  fallen  away.  There  was  not  a  foot 
of  firm  foothold  under  his  feet. 

More  than  ever  before  was  he  like  that  piece  of  bait  in  the 
deep  waters  under  Carrickmore.  Ireland  had  called  to  him 
and  he  had  lost  her.  Democracy  had  called,  and  because  of 
Ireland  he  had  not  responded.  The  faith  of  Father  Lestrange, 
like  the  faith  of  his  parents,  held  nothing — no,  not  that,  but 
it  only  held  something  for  him — it  did  not  hold  all,  and  he  de- 
manded all  or  nothing  of  faith  as  of  people.  The  things  he 
wanted  to  love  he  hated — and  the  things  he  hated  he  some- 
times loved.  From  those  first  days  when  as  a  little  child  he 
had  begun  to  think  of  God  and  of  life,  life  and  God  had  eluded 
him.  Sometimes  it  almost  seemed  to  him  that  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other  existed.  That  life,  like  God,  was  a  mirage. 

He  had  not  even  the  poor  satisfaction  of  yielding  himself  to 
the  pleasure  of  life.  He  could  no  more  yield  himself  to  Stella 
Fay  than  he  could  win  the  love  of  Deirdre  Asthar,  whom  he 
hated  and  loved  together.  He  was  the  lone  inhabitant  of  a 
sort  of  No  Man's  Land,  doomed  to  lonely  misery  of  soul  and 
body — for  these  two  things  he  could  not  separate. 

After  he  had  gone  back  to  London  and,  with  the  instincts 
of  the  devil  turned  monk,  as  Stella  Fay  had  put  it  mockingly, 
had  tried  to  lose  himself  amongst  the  Universalists,  at  the 
time  when  he  believed  that  at  last  he  had  found  an  ark  for 
his  faith,  he  had  once  more  been  flung  wild  by  one  of  those 
apparently  trifling  things  which  so  often  proved  decisive  for 
him. 

He  had  been  at  the  headquarters  in  Piccadilly  and  through 

243 


244  GODS 

the  door  opening  into  the  Temple,  which  hitherto  had  always 
been  kept  religiously  closed,  had  been  watching  that  bull- 
man,  Buck  Cronstairs,  trying  with  clumsy  fingers  to  arrange 
the  flowers  in  the  vases  and  upsetting  the  contents  in  his  well- 
meant  efforts.  Strom,  who  had  just  finished  a  six  months' 
course  of  pine-nuts,  and  who  was  in  consequence  vibrating 
a  trifle  thinly,  had  come  in  with  his  babies  under  his  arms, 
bringing  to  Finn  the  interrogation  which  had  so  often  over- 
taken him  in  that  temple  of  cranks — why  was  it  that  excellent 
people  who  lived  on  nuts  and  water  for  their  own  or  for 
Christ's  sake  were  often  so  obviously  inferior  in  one  way  or 
other  to  people  who  smoked,  drank  and  ate  meat?  It  was 
once  more  that  eternal  contradiction  inherent  in  things. 

Ellen  Masters,  who  had  come  out  from  the  Temple,  clad  in 
that  white  woollen  garment  which  made  her  look  more  than 
ever  like  a  priest,  was  approached  by  the  Swede,  who  shyly 
drew  the  hoods  from  his  statues,  which  Finn  saw  were  very 
beautiful  and  curious. 

He  held  them  out  to  her  dumbly. 

She  looked  at  them  indifferently  and  thanked  him,  but  said: 
"You  know  I  don't  care  for  them,  as  I  said  before.  I  much 
prefer  .  .  ."  She  broke  off.  "Why  can't  you  do  some- 
thing like  The  Mother'  over  there?"  She  pointed  at  the  plas- 
ter horror  of  the  statue  Finn  had  seen  that  first  day. 

The  Swede  had  said  nothing  but  had  covered  his  darlings 
once  more  and  silently  left  the  place.  And  again  Finn  could 
see  the  dust  shaken  from  the  sandalled  feet. 

This  had  both  raised  and  explained  all  sorts  of  questions.  If 
it  were  possible  for  Ellen  Masters  to  mistake  fifth-rate  art 
for  the  real  thing — where  was  the  value  of  the  spiritual  light 
of  which  her  followers  boasted?  A  great  spirit,  Christ  for 
example,  would  not  make  that  mistake.  It  would  understand 
everything  and,  first  of  all,  art.  Yet  Ellen  Masters  was  a 
great  spirit.  Even  now  he  could  not  deny  that.  It  was,  again, 
vastly  puzzling. 

This  shaking  in  his  slowly  formulating  convictions  had  in- 
creased as  he  overheard  a  conversation  one  day  between  that 
lame  young  man  whom,  with  his  crutches,  he  had  met  in  the 
lift  the  day  of  his  first  visit  and  the  white-haired  young  woman 
who  had  once  told  him  that  "between  Universalism  and  the 
Universalists  there  was  a  great  gulf  fixed.'7  The  lame  man 


IN  THE  MELTING  POT  245 

had  said:  "It  is  the  Universalists  who  will  kill  Universalism 
as  the  Christians  have  killed  Christianity  .  .  .  perhaps  I 
am  the  only  Universalist."  And  he  had  laughed.  He  had 
gone  on:  " Universalism,  like  Catholicism  and  Protestantism 
before  it,  is  already  in  process  of  crystallisation,  and  it  will 
give  way  to  a  new  religion,  the  central  point  of  which  will  be 
'consciousness,'  without  dogma,  for  dogma,  basically,  is  un- 
consciousness. It  will  be  the  religion  of  'Conscious  Democ- 
racy' without  temple  or  priest  and  it  will  erect  its  altars  to 
the  Unknown  God,  in  temples  not  made  with  hands."  Some- 
thing had  stirred  in  Finn  at  the  words,  which  came  to  him  as 
a  memory.  Paris  Asthar  had  once  said  that. 

The  lame  man  had  finished  with  that  indulgent  humour  of 
his,  as  he  hobbled  away  on  his  black-rubbered  crutches:  "The 
Universalists  are  always  talking  about  'eternal  principles.'  The 
gods  don't  care  a  damn  for  eternal  principles — there  are  no 
eternal  principles!" 

But  for  Finn,  during  the  three  years  that  followed  his  leav- 
ing Crux,  to  that  gentleman's  disgustful  astonishment,  the 
world  about  him  was  fast  changing  from  grey  to  rose-red. 
From  the  moment  when  that  stream  of  articles  on  Ireland, 
which  he  had  written  after  his  quarrel  with  Deirdre  Asthar 
that  night  on  the  road  from  Dunhallow,  had  appeared  in  "The 
Earth,"  the  articles  which  marked  his  surrender  to  Thrum, 
everything  had  gone  well  with  him. 

For  that  three  years,  he  went  from  strength  to  strength,  los- 
ing himself  in  the  fevers  of  Fleet  Street,  all  doors  opened  to 
him  and  his  pen  winning  the  golden  rewards  of  the  successful 
journalist.  His  book  on  Ireland  he  had,  of  course,  long  since 
abandoned,  leaving  the  MS.  in  a  drawer.  The  quarterlies  had 
invited  him  to  contribute  his  opinions  upon  Ireland  after 
Thrum  had  given  them  in  his  papers  the  prominence  which  he 
alone  could  secure,  and  his  name  was  constantly  being  quoted 
in  leading  dailies  as  "that  sane  young  Irishman,  Finn  Fon- 
taine," or  "that  smart  young  journalist." 

If  he  could  only  have  prevented  himself  thinking,  he  would 
have  felt  himself  happy,  basking  in  gratified  recognition. 

He  was  now  well-dressed.  His  soft  green  wide-awakes  had 
even  set  a  fashion  amongst  rising  journalists,  and  as  he  went,  his 
tall  broad-shouldered  figure  was  one  of  the  sights  of  Fleet 
Street,  the  most  admired  by  the  youthful  adventurers  there. 


246  GODS 

There  were  of  course  flies  in  the  unguents  of  success.  And 
there  was  his  father,  who  was  getting  tottery,  with  a  tendency 
to  faintings.  He  was  now  selling  or  trying  to  sell  a  new  ency- 
clopaedia, the  weight  of  which  was  causing  varicose  veins  to 
swell  in  his  legs.  It  was  a  great  shame,  and  although  Finn 
tried  to  help  his  now  admiring  people  from  time  to  time,  his 
money  seemed  to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  insatiable  maw  of  that 
man  Spellbind,  who  at  this  time  was  swelling  prodigiously  both 
in  person  and  bank  balance.  With  his  dropsical  swellings  he 
had  always  looked  as  though  he  had  water  on  the  brain.  Now 
it  was  his  stomach  which  seemed  full  of  water,  giving  to  it  the 
flatulence  of  a  corpse.  At  last  Finn  had  refused  to  help  any 
more. 

And  he  had  lost  his  dear  little  grandmother,  who,  one  day, 
praying  for  him,  was  unable  to  rise  from  her  knees  and,  for  the 
first  time,  had  to  be  assisted  up  the  three  steps  of  ascent  to 
the  great  bed.  And  there,  full  of  years,  she  had  passed  away 
some  days  later,  singing  her  quavering  hymns  to  the  last  and 
blessing  and  praying  for  Finn  and  all  about  her.  Her  very 
last  words  had  been  for  him — the  apple  of  her  eye. 

She  had  been  lying  with  two  big  pillows  to  prop  her  up 
in  the  bed,  her  thin  wrinkled  hands  smoothing  the  coverlet, 
tremulous,  a  wisp  of  grey  coming  from  under  her  nightcap. 
And  she  had  said  to  him,  as  the  evening  sun  came  westering 
through  the  window  to  fall  upon  the  dim  blue  eyes  that 
searched  the  golden  glory  of  the  September  heavens:  "Finn, 
boy,  Finn."  He  had  turned  at  the  low  pleading  voice.  "Come, 
alannah,  and  put  your  arms  around  me."  And  he  had  done  so. 

"Oh,  Finn,  I'm  goin'  from  you  and  from  Jemmy  and  all. 
But  Finn,  avick,"  and  she  had  looked  long  and  earnestly  at 
him,  a  sort  of  radiance  shining  from  behind  the  eyes,  "I  will 
still  be  pray  in'  for  ye  and  lovin'  ye  where  I  am  going.  Death 
cannot  kill  prayer  or  love.  For  love  is  everything."  And  then 
she  had  smiled  pleasantly  at  him  and  had  said,  low,  distinct: 
"God  is  love." 

She  had  sighed  in  his  arms  like  a  very  tired  child  and  so 
had  fallen  asleep. 

It  had  affected  him  very  much  at  the  time  and  indeed  had 
plunged  him  into  a  sort  of  misery,  in  which  his  old  thoughts 
about  God  had  once  more  surged  up  within  him.  Not  that 
he  had  ever  forgotten  them  altogether  or  ever  believed  that  he 


IN  THE  MELTING  POT  247 

could  shut  out  God  by  refusing  to  think  of  him.  But  they 
had  come  to  trouble  him,  and  with  them  had  come  a  sort  of 
poignancy — about  Deirdre  Asthar  and  about  Ireland.  Yet, 
both  these  things  he  thought  he  had  put  out  of  his  heart  for- 
ever. 

But  that  had  passed.  As  he  said  it  to  himself:  "The  virtue 
had  gone  out  of  him." 

He  had,  however,  the  strangest  lapses,  over  which  he  seemed 
to  have  no  control.  There  were  moments  when  the  face  of 
Deirdre  Asthar  would  come  to  him  to  arouse  him  to  violent 
despair,  when  it  took  all  his  strength  of  will  to  shut  her  out 
and  himself  to  peace  again.  And  for  the  girl  with  the  copper 
hair  he  had  moments  when  he  felt  a  disgust  to  her  as  though 
she  had  been  some  noxious  animal — moments  that  came  to 
him  when  least  expected,  even  in  the  approachings  of  hot  de- 
sire. It  seemed  always  that  contact  or  nearer  approach  made 
him  hate  her,  and  that  moment  of  the  valley  had  never  re- 
turned. 

But  perhaps  this  was  because  Paris  Asthar,  with  that  per- 
versity which  distinguished  him,  was  always  urging  him  to 
surrender  himself  to  Stella. 

He  had  with  a  certain  insistent  suavity  of  his  own,  which 
indeed  was  entirely  logical,  shown  Finn  that  the  suppression 
of  natural  instinct  was  in  itself  unnatural;  that  above  all  it  was 
the  chaste  man  who  had  not  the  right  to  refuse  himself  to 
some  poor  woman  to  whose  own  development  he  was  necessary, 
and  had  generally  comported  himself  as  a  very  gentlemanly 
pander  indeed. 

But  Finn  also  had  a  perversity,  which  made  him  refuse  just 
because  Paris  Asthar  wished  it.  As  for  Paris,  his  splendid 
appearance  was  fast  transforming,  he  seemed  to  be  falling  in 
on  himself,  a  splendid  ruin  of  a  man,  and  even  his  half  sister 
was  gradually  withdrawing  herself  from  him. 

Stella  Fay  he  had  met  constantly.  She  seemd  to  have  for- 
gotten that  night  in  the  valley,  and  save  for  the  little  mocking 
smile  that  haunted  her  lips,  he  might  have  thought  that  he 
had  dreamt  it.  Only  she  no  longer  made  love  to  him,  but 
seemed  to  hold  herself  afar  off,  watching  for  something.  They 
were  excellent  comrades  and  had  visited  all  sorts  of  queer 
places  together,  including  the  great  grey  stone  church  in 
Kensington  known  as  "The  Church  of  the  Beautiful,"  the  only 


248  GODS 

church  in  the  world  without  a  head  as  Stella  was  careful  to 
inform  him.  It  was  the  last  thing  in  nebulousness. 

It  was  one  of  the  numerous  sects  in  which  she  was  always 
dabbling  and  into  which  she  seemed,  at  the  beginning  of  each 
new  experiment,  to  plunge  herself  with  zest,  real  or  assumed. 
Down  at  Forestford,  they  had  once  had  a  black  cat  which, 
even  when  long  past  the  vagaries  of  kittenhood,  would,  as  night 
came  on,  run  about  the  grass  of  the  little  back  garden  like 
a  mad  thing,  rushing  up  into  the  top  of  the  two  fruit  trees 
and  hiding  herself  in  impenetrable  positions  from  which  she 
would  dart  out  upon  an  unsuspecting  world.  Ginger  had 
said  the  devil  was  in  Semolina — the  name  she  had  given  her 
— and  would  add  in  her  dreadful  East-end  slang  that  "she  was 
balmy  on  her  crumpet."  Stella  Fay  often  reminded  him  of 
that  cat. 

This  church  remained  long  in  Finn's  memory,  because  it 
seemed  to  be  typical  of  so  many  of  the  new  sects  and  cults 
that  were  at  this  time  springing  up  everywhere  in  London,  and, 
indeed,  throughout  the  world.  Behind  it  was  that  atmosphere 
of  riches  and  "  fashionable  faith"  which  he  had  learned  to 
associate  with  a  certain  type  of  autocracy.  Its  congregation, 
like  so  many  of  the  Universalists  themselves,  like  their  horses 
and  carriages,  were  richly  upholstered.  They  semed  to  play 
with  spirituality  as  a  child  plays  with  a  new  toy,  though  even 
Finn,  now  fine-edged  critically,  was  not  prepared  to  say  that 
they  did  not  feel  something  of  what  they  professed. 

The  Church  of  the  Beautiful  was  a  noble  building,  the  high 
slender  spire  of  which  hung  like  a  white  shadow  behind  the 
trees  of  Kensington.  In  the  centre,  was  a  whispering  gal- 
lery from  which  the  pure  sound  of  boys'  voices  spiralled  down 
to  the  congregation  beneath.  Around  the  walls,  indifferently, 
were  statues  of  Christ,  Buddha,  and  Minerva,  and  instead  of 
hymns  the  concealed  singing,  luscious  and  ethical,  was  from 
the  poems  of  Swinburne  and  Shelley.  The  whole  thing  was 
really  very  well  done. 

He  discovered  later  that  instead  of  a  head,  this  church  had 
a  sort  of  Inner  Council  of  Three,  presided  over  by  the  man 
who  was  called  "The  Founder,"  the  name  of  whom  was  never 
disclosed.  Nobody  ever  knew  who  the  founder  really  was. 
Some  said  that  "The  Founder"  was  the  man  who  had  founded 
the  Church,  a  man  of  enormous  wealth — others  that  he  was 


IN  THE  MELTING  POT  249 

changed  each  year,  his  identity  being  known  alone  to  the 
Council. 

It  was  all  very  mysterious  and  cloudy  and,  of  course,  "beau- 
tiful," that  word  which  was  always  making  its  appearance  in 
the  literature  and  singing.  Not  that  its  adherents  were  de- 
barred from  admixtures  to  that  principle  of  beauty,  which, 
vaguely,  they  were  supposed  to  worship — if  they  wished  to 
add  their  own  private  gods  they  could  do  so — and  of  course 
they  did  wish.  But  between  the  Universalists  and  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  Beautiful,  as  it  was  sometimes  called,  there 
was  feud  none  the  less  deadly  in  that  it  was  carried  on  in 
the  politest  and  most  forgiving  manner. 

So  far  as  Finn  could  see,  this  was  but  a  reflex  of  the 
world  as  a  whole,  that  world  which  was  in  a  state  of  spiritual 
disintegration,  tending  to  a  certain  vagueness  in  religion,  con- 
fusing it  more  and  more  with  politics  as  with  patriotism. 
Wave  after  wave  seemed  to  be  passing  across  it,  and  the 
foundations  of  belief,  like  his  own,  seemed  to  be  in  the  melting 
pot.  Each  day  the  newspapers  were  filled  with  semi-humourous 
articles  about  Lanthorn  and  his  Borderland  Bureau,  only  that 
now,  despite  the  frantic  and  not  altogether  scientifically  dig- 
nified protests  of  men  like  Professor  Dust,  bewildered,  Sir 
Lancaster  Hogge,  squawky,  and  another  rationalist  professor — 
roaring,  these  articles  were  gradually  losing  their  humourous 
tinge  and,  whilst  holding  themselves  editorially  circumspect, 
there  seemed  to  be  a  trend,  under  the  public  demand  for  more 
of  Lanthorn's  "facts,"  although  these  facts  were  still  always 
inverted  commaed,  to  permit  them  to  be  regarded  with  some 
seriousness.  "Spooks,"  materialising,  were  now  becoming 
"ghosts"  in  the  daily  paper.  Soon  they  would  attain  the  full 
dignity  of  matter  and  become  "matter  of  fact"  as  Asthar  had 
put  it  in  an  article  in  the  "Contemporary." 

An  archdeacon  in  the  church  had  boldly  come  out  on  the 
side  of  spiritualism — or,  as  he  said,  "on  the  side  of  the  angels," 
a  phrase  that  was  beginning  to  be  used  by  the  most  varied 
types  of  people.  The  bishops  were  in  a  constant  state  of 
shock  and  alarm,  not  knowing  how  to  orientate  themselves 
to  the  new  tendencies,  or,  as  the  Bishop  of  Whitechapel  said, 
in  one  of  his  bewildered  fulminations,  "what  to  do  for  the 
best." 

The  Reverend  Slick,  however,  repulsed  at  Black  Rock,  was 


250  GODS 

at  the  Kensington  Rotunda  going  stronger  than  ever,  keeping 
all  London  awake  with  his  howlings — with  Big  Business  boom- 
ing behind. 

To  add  to  the  confusion,  Sir  Raymond  Hilary,  whose  dis- 
tinguished investigations  as  physicist  into  the  new  atomic 
theory,  largely  inspired  by  the  discovery  of  radium,  had  com- 
pelled his  brother  scientists  to  recognise  him  by  making  him 
President  for  the  year  of  the  British  Association,  had  come 
out  and  shocked  the  very  foundations  of  their  beliefs  by  de- 
claring, positively  and  even  pugnaciously,  that  life  and  identity 
persisted  after  death,  giving  his  proofs  and  defying  refuta- 
tion. This  had  caused  amongst  his  fellow-scientists  very  much 
the  same  feeling  that  a  Spanish  Grand  Inquisitor  might  be 
supposed  to  have  felt  at  the  denial  by  a  cardinal  of  the  Im- 
maculate Conception.  But  there  the  challenge  stood — and 
the  man  in  the  street  at  any  rate,  just  beginning  to  find  in- 
terest in  such  speculations,  seemed  to  think  that  Sir  Raymond 
so  far  had  had  the  best  of  the  argument,  which  somebody  sign- 
ing himself  "Lucifer,  Son  of  the  Morning,"  had  done  his  best 
alternately  to  back  up  and  laugh  at  in  the  "Contemporary." 
It  was  Paris  Asthar,  of  course. 

Even  the  immemorial  placidity  of  the  religions  of  the  East 
seemed  to  be  feeling  something  of  these  new  disturbances. 
They  had  begun  to  flood  the  materialist  West  with  their  pam- 
phlets and  expositions,  and  Sri  Kapila,  the  Indian  Finn  had 
met  at  "The  Cloisters,"  had  been  holding  a  series  of  lectures 
in  the  West  end  of  London  to  packed  houses,  declaring  that 
the  East  was  breaking  its  long  silence  and  indifference  to 
propaganda  to  convert  the  West.  Of  course  the  papers  laughed 
at  him,  but  large  and  increasing  numbers  seemed  to  be  taking 
him  seriously. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  quite  evident  that  these  move- 
ments so  far  were  confined  to  minorities,  the  great  mass  of 
Europeans  being  either  indifferent  or  hostile,  and  from  all  sides 
arose  the  complaint  that  Europe  was  fast  sinking  into  the 
slough  of  the  material,  with  its  motto:  "Eat,  drink,  and  be 
merry,  for  tomorrow  we  die." 

With  all  this  went  the  ever-increasing  growth  of  prophecies 
of  a  Great  War,  coming  from  the  most  contradictory  quar- 
ters. Even  men  so  widely  divorced  as  Paris  Asthar  and  Father 
Lestrange  said  that  such  a  war  was  inevitable,  and  for  one 


IN  THE  MELTING  POT  251 

purpose  only — the  saving  of  Europe  from  her  materialist 
hog-trough  and  the  tearing  down  of  the  veils  between  the 
worlds  of  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  now  wearing  thin.  It  was 
what  these  people  had  always  said. 

The  European  statesmen,  both  of  Germany  and  France,  as 
of  England  and  Austro-Hungary,  constantly  foreshadowed  the 
struggle  in  speech  and  article,  although  in  veiled  phrases,  as 
did  the  platforms  of  democracy.  The  pulpits  were  full  of 
vague  denunciations  of  the  profligacy  of  the  times  and  of  the 
Armageddon  that  should  follow  them.  Finn  himself,  an  atom 
in  all  this  stir,  dipped  his  pen  deep  and  wrote  about  it  as  did 
hundreds  of  other  journalists,  who  felt  that  such  a  war  would 
in  some  unexplained  way  come  as  a  relief.  Like  millions  of 
others  he  expected,  and  wanted,  something  to  happen.  He 
scarcely  knew  what.  But  something.  Europe  was  like  a 
woman  about  to  travail — to  bring  forth  .  .  .  what?  It 
was  a  feeling  of  tension  unbearable — the  feeling  of  something 
inevitable. 


XXVI 

"GOD  OF  BATTLES" 

Something  else  that  jagged  Finn  like  an  old  wound  was  the 
constant  impulse,  despite  his  success,  to  attend,  furtively,  the 
big  labour  meetings  now  being  held  under  the  advance  of  the 
rising  Democracy,  where  he  had  been  considerably  puzzled  at 
the  varying  outlooks  of  the  leaders,  who  seemed  to  embrace 
all  types  from  "idealists"  like  Jock  Mac  Adam  to  material- 
ists like  Red  Borb. 

Another  thing  that  puzzled  was  the  thing  which  had  first 
struck  him  that  day  of  the  unemployed  procession — the  curious 
trend  of  Democracy  to  religion — its  habit  of  using  bible  quo- 
tations on  its  banners  and  a  religious  terminology  or  phras- 
ing on  its  platforms  and  in  its  pamphlets.  It  was  gradually 
coming  to  him  that  what  was  called  "Democracy"  was  really  a 
new  world-religion,  and  somebody  had  written  of  it  that  like 
other  faiths  it  was  developing  its  priests  and  its  dogmas. 

He  had  been  sent  by  Thrum  to  interview  MacAdam  prior 
to  a  mass  meeting  of  the  unemployed,  which  at  this  time  was 
thought  to  herald  open  rebellion,  and,  incoherently  enough, 
was  much  distressed  when  MacAdam  had  looked  at  him  from 
under  his  shaggy  brows  to  say:  "I  wonder,  Mr.  Fontaine, 
that  you  care  to  serve  the  devil!" 

It  distressed  him  out  of  all  relation  to  its  importance,  per- 
haps because  he  had  never  been  able  entirely  to  get  that  pro- 
cession of  unemployed  out  of  his  head.  He  could  sometimes 
see  it,  blind,  swinging  through  the  fogs  into  the  heart  of  the 
red  sun. 

Thrum  was  now  gathering  his  haunches  under  him  for  one 
of  his  periodical  "springs,"  in  each  one  of  which  he  usually 
managed  to  engulf  a  competitor.  He  was  beating  the  big 
drum  against  Germany  and  making  the  press  of  the  world,  as 
its  chancelleries  and  parliaments,  resound  with  his  noise. 
Gradually  this  paean  of  praise  and  hate  was  resolving  itself 

252 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  253 

into  a  glorification  of  Nationalism  and  a  damnation  of  In- 
ternationalism. It  had  puzzled  Finn  very  much  at  the  time, 
because  Thrum's  nationalism  had  seemed  to  be  the  exact 
antithesis  of  that  nationalism  he  had  met  in  Ireland.  He  was 
even  beginning  to  speak  in  "The  Earth"  about  "God  and  the 
British  Empire."  The  Almighty  figured  constantly  in  his 
leaders. 

Finn  was  now  looked  upon  by  Thrum  as  one  of  his  best 
men.  He  reserved  him  for  all  his  big  "stunts,"  as  they  called 
them  at  the  office.  He  now  wanted  him  to  write  what  he 
called  "a  picturesque  account"  of  the  biggest  stunt  he  had 
hitherto  attempted — the  private  meeting  of  delegates  whiclj 
was  to  be  the  preliminary  to  the  formation  of  an  International 
Peace  Union  which,  upon  the  threat  of  war  then  materialising, 
would,  in  the  various  European  countries  hold  mass  meetings 
of  protest  and  initiate  united  pacifist  action. 

There  were  to  be  at  this  preliminary  meeting  only  a  score 
of  delegates — that  is,  representatives  of  the  world's  peace  so- 
cieties as  of  those  of  Labour  and  Socialism.  Even  the  Churches, 
those  disciples  of  Christianity  militant,  had  been  invited  to 
send  half  a  dozen  delegates.  The  proceedings  of  the  meeting 
were  to  be  secret,  for  the  organisers  were  afraid  of  the  laughter 
of  a  scornful  and  practical  world. 

Finn  had  no  right  to  be  there.  It  was  Thrum's  idea.  With 
that  admirable  imagination  which  had  given  the  great  jour- 
nalist the  position  he  occupied,  he  had  promptly  formed  a 
"Peace"  society  of  prominent  friends,  for  the  purpose,  as  he 
said,  of  holding  a  watching  brief  upon  the  pacifists.  They 
were  too  prominent  to  be  denied  representation,  and  he  had 
sent  Finn  as  their  delegate.  By  this  means,  "The  Earth" 
would  be  the  only  paper  to  have  a  report  of  the  proceedings. 
It  would  be  one  more  "scoop." 

It  was  about  n  of  a  thundery  August  morning  when  Finn 
entered  the  London  headq'uarters  of  the  Workers'  Party, 
where  the  meetings  were  to  be  held.  It  was  a  rather  heavy 
room,  pictureless  and  bare,  with  a  board  table  on  trestles 
standing  bleakly  across  the  centre,  there  being  a  large  chair 
in  the  middle  with  smaller  chairs  fringing  the  rest  of  the 
table.  Two  long  curtainless  windows  let  in  a  stray  light, 
which,  however,  only  served  to  accentuate  the  utilitarian  gloom 
of  the  place  to  which  some  relief  was  given  by  a  gleam  of  silk 


254  GODS 

in  the  corners  where  Democracy  had  left  its  banners  after 
some  demonstration.  Directly  behind  the  big  chair,  how- 
ever, stood  a  banner  of  smoky  red,  on  it,  in  gold  lettering: 
"Workers  of  the  World— Unite!" 

He  slipped  into  the  vacant  chair  at  the  end  of  the  table 
and  looked  at  the  men  and  women  either  entering  the  room 
or  already  seated.  Once  more  he  was  held  by  the  astonishingly 
diversified  types  of  the  new  democracy. 

A  dusky-haired  girl  in  the  early  twenties  came  through  the 
door  with  a  young  man  who  might  have  been  her  lover — both 
of  them  obviously  aristocrats.  Her  hair,  done  low  on  her 
neck  and  her  long  limbs  set  off  by  a  rather  close-fitting  skirt, 
reminded  him  of  Stella  Fay,  only  that  the  lightsome  eyes  had 
another  expression.  She  had  a  jaw  and  Finn  thought  looked 
apt  to  be  difficult. 

The  man  he  took  to  be  her  lover  was  a  slender  determined 
idealist  of  a  transition  stage  when  men  of  the  upper  and  middle 
classes  were  showing  themselves  singly  side  by  side  with  the 
rising  Democracy — apparently  a  University  man.  There  was 
something  spiritually  impressive  about  the  slender  figure,  the 
fine  head,  and  the  mobile,  clean-shaven  mouth,  but  Finn,  look- 
ing at  him,  said  to  himself  that  he  lacked  something — perhaps 
passion.  And  in  a  sense  Finn  was  right  about  a  man  who  was 
not  humanly  exciting  any  more  than  Christ  would  have  been 
humanly  exciting  had  he  appeared  in  the  Twentieth  Century. 
There  was  a  naturalness  about  him,  however,  which  drew  Finn. 

The  big,  loose-framed  Irishman  who  followed  the  man  and 
girl  Finn  knew  by  sight.  That  was  Durgan,  the  Direct  Ac- 
tionist.  He  knew  him  for  a  man  who  could  be  obstinate, 
pugnacious,  and  even  brutal  in  his  fanaticism,  although  there 
was  about  him  something  beautiful,  though  fated.  He  was  the 
man  of  whom  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  once  written 
in  the  columns  of  "The  Times"  that  in  him  was  an  evil  spirit,  a 
theory  eagerly  though  riotously  upheld  by  Paris  Asthar  who, 
in  a  long  letter,  had  made  out  an  excellent  case  for  "pos- 
session." 

Ellen  Masters,  dressed  in  white  muslin,  already  sat  at  one 
end  of  the  long  table,  looking  with  her  heavy  jowl  and  wise 
saggy  eyes  like  some  great  intelligent  lioness,  very  conscious, 
and  very  dangerous. 

In  the  chair,  already  declaiming  in  a  voice  of  anaesthesia, 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  255 

a  large  soft-looking  man  was  addressing  his  audience  as  though 
they  had  been  a  congregation  and  the  chair  a  pulpit.  It  was 
a  voice  to  which  Finn  had  become  accustomed  from  his  fre- 
quent attendances  at  Labour  meetings. 

On  one  side  of  the  Chairman  sat  Adolph  Gutenmann,  the 
German  Socialist  chief,  whose  heavy  white  walrus  moustache, 
round  spectacles,  and  rubicund  face  were  known  at  every 
congress  table  in  Europe.  On  the  other,  Sylvester  Vallon,  his 
friend  the  enemy,  his  natural  opposite,  whose  eyes  behind  their 
darkened  glasses  gave  him  something  of  the  gaze  of  the  half- 
blind  man  whose  eyes  are  fixed  beyond  earthly  horizons. 

And  now  the  chairman,  who  was  one  John  Bluett,  a  per- 
fectly honest,  perfectly  tame,  member  of  the  Labour  Party 
and  a  lay  preacher,  was  going  on  in  a  fashion  that  was  at 
once  balmy  and  slightly  condescending  as  though  he  were  at 
a  prayer  meeting.  .  .  .  "We  have  gathered  here  to-day, 
friends,  for  a  great  purpose,  a  solemn  purpose — the  abolition  of 
war  from  the — ahem! — "  giving  a  loose  rein  to  his  imagina- 
tion— "universe."  Then  followed  the  usual  string  of  plati- 
tudes to  which  Finn  had  become  inured  from  John  Bluett  and 
his  like,  in  which  the  words  "open  mind"  occurred  at  reg- 
ular intervals.  The  blue  eyes  became  misty  as  the  speaker 
went  on: 

"I  remember  when  I  was  a  little  boy  at  Sunday-school  we 
used  to  have  a  hymn  in  which  we  sung  about  the  beauty  of 
the  earth  'From  Greenland's  icy  mountains,  to  India's  coral 
strand,'  and  in  which,  if  my  memory  serves  me  correctly, 
we  were  accustomed  to  say  that  'only  man  was  vile.7  Al- 
though I  do  not  see  before  me  either  Greenlander  or  Indian, 
I  believe  that  the  hymn  is  suitable  to  the  present  international 
gathering  .  .  .  Here,  under  a  dubious  "ahem!"  from 
another  delegate,  the  chairman,  who  reminded  Finn  of  his 
Aunt  Maria,  showed  a  tendency  to  wander  from  the  point,  tried 
to  save  himself,  stuttered,  stumbled,  and  finally  extricated  him- 
self from  the  mess  of  his  thinking  by  plunging  into  a  generally 
devout  hope  that  "under  the  blessing  of  Providence  our  efforts 
to-day  may  result  in  the  nearer  coming  of  that  day  when  the 
sword  shall  be  beaten  into  the  ploughshare  and  the  spear  into 
the  pruning  hook." 

It  was  not  what  the  man  said  so  held  the  attention  of  Finn 
Fontaine,  but  the  way  in  which  he  said  it — that  queer  tendency 


256  GODS 

in  modern  politic  to  introduce  religion  and  even  to  couch 
the  political  message  in  the  language  of  orthodoxy.  Again 
and  again  this  was  brought  out  in  the  remarks  of  those 
who  followed.  Once  more  it  came  to  him  that  Asthar,  who 
had  so  often  said  that  the  day  war  broke  out  in  Europe  the 
gods  would  be  fighting  on  either  side  above  the  protagonists, 
was  perhaps  using  something  more  than  the  language  of 
phantasy. 

This  was  religion,  not  politic.    Perhaps  there  was  no  politic. 

This  showed  itself  once  more  in  the  speech  of  the  man  who 
had  followed  the  soft-faced  chairman.  He  was  the  tall,  raw- 
boned  Irishman,  bitter  as  only  a  Southern  Irishman  can  be, 
though  his  was  actually  but  a  protest  against  the  religious 
note.  It  was  there  when  in  a  strong  passage  he  said:  "I  will 
tell  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  for  what  we  have  not  come  here  to- 
day— to  hold  a  prayer  meeting.  The  time  for  prayer  is  past — 
the  time  for  action  come.  You  have  quoted  Providence  as 
I  have  heard  it  quoted  at  every  Labour  Congress  I  have  ever 
attended — one  of  our  democratic  specialties  is  Providence  and 
politics — and  after  all  our  providential  politics  through  a 
century,  where  do  we  stand  to-day,  I  ask  ye?  ...  on 
the  edge  of  fratricidal  war,  in  which  comrade  will  slaughter 
comrade  in  the  name  of  the  very  God  you  profess  to  serve 
..."  and  then  he  had  added,  bitterly:  "  ...  he 
is  still  the  God  of  Battles. 

"You  have  quoted  your  Sunday-school — well,  mine  used  to 
tell  me  that  God  helped  those  who  helped  themselves;  but  the 
master  of  tactics,  your  master  and  mine,  said  that  Providence 
was  on  the  side  of  the  big  battalions.  I  believe  that.  We 
have  right  and  we  have  might.  We  have  the  big  battalions 
of  democracy  to  prevent  the  bloody  war  now  being  talked 
of  throughout  Europe.  We  have  had  enough  talk.  Now  let 
us  have  action. 

"Ye  talk  of  God!"  (He  said  it  with  a  savage  contempt.) 
"Well,  if  there  is  a  God  of  Peace,  there  is  also  a  God  of 
Battle — it  stands  in  the  book  you  have  just  quoted — and  he  is 
perhaps  the  God  of  the  Red  International,  the  International 
of  Blood  which  is  to  replace  that  other  capitalist  International 
of  Gold,  which  in  its  turn  replaced  that  other  of  Birth — the 
International  that  is  beating  into  us  workers  the  lesson  that 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  257 

combination  is  the  price  of  life  as  it  is  the  price  of  peace. 
For  combination  means  domination.  .  .  ." 

"And  domination,  damnation,"  inserted  glibly  one  of  the 
delegates,  a  lanky  young  man  who  had  just  glided  into  an 
empty  chair  and  whose  hair,  parted  in  the  centre  and  com- 
ing up  into  horn  points,  gave  him  something  of  a  benevo- 
lent satyr.  It  was,  as  Finn  recognised,  Mr.  Lancelot  Fitz, 
the  pacifist  whose  tongue  and  pen  were  dipped  in  oil  and 
vinegar  and  who  was  known  as  "The  Gamin,"  who,  as  Paris 
Asthar  once  said,  respected  neither  God  nor  man  but  loved 
both." 

"And  domination,  damnation,"  he  had  said. 

"Dominate  or  be  damned!"  said  the  big  Irishman,  heavily. 
"You  talk  about  your  meaningless  labour  resolutions  and  your 
God  of  peace  in  every  congress  hall.  Why,  every  congress 
hall.  .  .  ." 

".  .  .  every  congress  hall  is  the  temple  of  the  Great 
Majority — the  Majority  Eternal,  and  you  believe  in  the  rule 
of  the  majority — not  the  minority.  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei" 
banteied  Fitz. 

"Hear-hear!  Hear-hear!"  ejaculated  the  chairman,  piously, 
forgetting  the  neutrality  of  chairmanship. 

"Always  remembering  that  the  minority  is  only  right  for 
the  time — the  majority,  never,"  put  in  Fitz  with  the  flippancy 
that  he  had  made  his  own. 

"And  I  do  believe  in  the  majority,"  went  on  the  Irishman 
stubbornly,  "but  even  the  majority  is  powerless  in  face  of 
war — of  the  Moloch  that  demands  his  meat  to-day  as  he  de- 
manded it  three  thousand  years  ago  in  Carthage.  It  is  the 
majority  which  to-day,  or  to-morrow,  in  face  of  the  threat 
of  war,  is  without  policy.  .  .  ." 

A  voice  came  from  the  end  of  the  table  in  quiet  challenge: 
"Where  is  your  policy?" 

The  big  man  drew  himself  up,  triumphant:  "The  sword  of 
the  strike." 

'A  sword  with  two  edges  that  cuts  both  ways,"  came  in 
low  distinctness  the  voice  of  an  old  man  from  his  place  under 
the  lee  of  the  big  Irishman.  "You  cannot  fight  the  sword 
with  the  sword."  And  then  he  had  added,  regretfully,  faintly: 
"He  that  lives  by  the  sword  shall  die  by  the  sword." 

Finn  had  noticed  this  old  Russian,  who  was  familiarly  and 


2S8  GODS 

affectionately  known  as  Old  Breschoff,  who,  leaning  upon 
his  wife's  arm,  had  taken  a  chair  upon  the  extreme  right  of 
the  table,  facing  the  chairman,  his  wife,  who  accompanied  him 
everywhere,  taking  a  chair  on  his  left  and  a  little  behind  him. 
During  the  proceedings,  this.  Russian  woman  of  furrowed  lines 
and  smooth  black  hair  had  watched  tenderly  over  her  hus- 
band, winner  of  the  Nobel  Prize  and  head  of  the  International 
Peace  Society. 

Finn  knew  something  about  him,  this  Tolstoyan  non-resister 
of  no  nation,  whose  weak  mild  blue  eyes  concealed  a  peculiar 
tenacity  of  ideal  and  purpose,  and  who  had  won  the  admira- 
tion of  the  crank  as  of  the  average  man,  the  respect  of  both 
friend  and  opponent.  It  had  been  said  of  him  that  he  was 
the  only  Twentieth  Century  European  who  had  succeeded  in 
carrying  out  both  in  spirit  and  letter  the  teachings  of  the 
Christ  whom  he  professed  to  serve. 

Finn  brought  back  these  wandering  recollections  to  the  Irish- 
man, who  was  declaiming  in  dour,  powerful  sentences:  ".  .  . 
all  this  is  only  talk.  We  want  action.  War  against  Warl" 
He  brought  out  the  words  in  one  of  his  triumphant  periods. 

"Talk,  talk,  only  talk,"  mimicked  Fitz,  who  feared  neither 
god  nor  devil. 

"No,  not  talk — action,"  retorted  his  big  opponent.  "The 
day  the  diplomats  declare  war — we  declare  the  International 
Strike.  Gutenmann  here  will  give  the  word  in  Germany,  Val- 
lon  in  France,  Masta  in  Italy — and  on  the  word  every  work- 
man throws  down  his  tools.  No  wheel  turns  in  the  munition 
factory.  No  wheel  in  the  streets.  No  wheel  on  the  iron  ways. 
The  labourer  throws  down  his  spade.  .  .  ." 

"And  the  gravedigger  also,  I  suppose,"  said  Fitz. 

"Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead,"  said  the  big  man  as  he 
sat  down. 

It  was  then  that  the  young  aristocrat  who  had  first  en- 
tered with  the  dusky-haired  girl  stood  up  to  say  something 
that  rivetted  Finn's  attention.  He  was  speaking  of  the  im- 
possibility of  the  General  Strike,  because  he,  like  thousands 
of  others  had  felt  unsure  of  their  ground  during  the  previous 
weeks  when  Europe  had  seemed  to  be  on  the  edge  of  war 
over  a  Morocco  incident. 

"It  is  something,"  he  said,  "which  has  caused  the  blood 
of  some  of  us  to  stir — to  stir  to  something  that  I  cannot 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  259 

define — perhaps  to  the  call  of  the  blood  itself;  or  perhaps  to 
the  Thing  behind  what  we  know  as  the  call  of  the  blood, 
whatever  that  Thing  or  Person  may  be.  It  is  a  phenomenon 
not  easy  to  describe,"  he  went  on — "it  is  more  of  a  feeling 
than  a  thing  of  consciousness.  That  thing  is  patriotism." 
And  then  he  had  added:  "It  may  be  a  sort  of  primeval  stir- 
ring— it  may  be  barbarous  and  uncivilised — it  may  be  the 
highest  form  of  virtue — but  it  is  there,  even  amongst  us  paci- 
fists. It  cannot  be  explained  away,  not  even  by  Durgan. 
There  are  instincts  that  are  deeper  than  anything  else — 
deeper  than  death — and  of  these  the  strongest  is  the  instinct 
of  country  that  men  call  patriotism.  Perhaps  patriotism  is 
the  splendid  spur  by  which  the  gods  achieve  their  ends.  I 
don't  know.  But  nothing  is  so  dominating,  so  powerful,  as 
this  patriotism." 

"Internationalism,"  came  a  deep  voice  from  the  other  end 
of  the  table,  at  the  moment  when  Finn  had  been  watching 
the  heavy,  wise  eyes  of  Ellen  Masters  fixed  upon  the  speaker 
with  something  that  might  have  been  a  smile  behind. 

But  Ellen  Masters  had  risen.  It  was  curious  to  see  how 
complete  was  the  hush  that  followed  as  she  looked  above  the 
head  of  the  chairman. 

"Internationalism  is  still  only  a  word.  It  is  not  even  a 
habit,"  said  the  Universalist  leader.  "It  is  something  from 
the  outside  that  has  never  been  translated  into  consciousness — 
that  consciousness  which  is  the  object  of  evolution"  (some- 
thing moved  Finn  at  the  words).  "It  is  something  that  has 
come  down  as  a  revelation  to  the  workers  and,  like  most  revela- 
tions, is  not  believed.  Perhaps  it  is,  as  the  previous  speaker 
has  said,  that  patriotism  is  one  of  the  spurs  by  which  the 
gods  achieve  their  ends — perhaps  in  our  times  the  chief  spur. 
Perhaps,  like  men,  the  gods  throw  away  their  tools  when 
they  have  finished  with  them.  Perhaps  Internationalism  and 
the  Democracy  of  which  it  is  the  result  is  a  tool  in  the  mak- 
ing, to  be  used  when  the  time  comes.  Who  knows?  Perhaps 
it  is  that  the  gods  grow  upon  the  things  on  which  they  feed — 
but  it  that  be  so,  the  cpirit  of  Internationalism  which  is  but 
the  mushroom  growth  of  half  a  hundred  years  will,  in  the 
face  of  war,  break  to-day  before  the  spirit  of  Nationalism 
which  is  the  growth  of  the  ages." 


260  GODS 

She  had  paused  to  look  about  her,  as  though,  for  the  first 
time,  aware  of  her  surroundings. 

"If  England  declare  war — if  Germany  declare  it — I  will  go 
on  the  platform,  like  most  -of  you,  to  fight  it  as  long  as  I 
can.  I  will  tell  the  workers  not  to  fight — and  I  will  wait  for 
the  German,  the  French,  and  the  other  democracies  to  recipro- 
cate— for  the  tocsin  of  War  against  War,  as  another  speaker 
has  said  .  .  .  even  though,  as  I  say  it,  I  believe  I  shall 
be  as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  .  .  ." 

"To  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord.  .  .  ."  It  was  Old 
Breschoff. 

".  .  .  to    try  ...  and    perhaps    to    fail,"    she    had    added 
as  she  resumed  her  seat. 

It  was  a  wretched  little  cobbler  from  the  East  End  who  had 
once  said  to  Finn:  "The  soul  of  a  crowd  is  not  the  soul  of  a 
man — it's  another  sort  of  soul.  It  grows  with  the  thing  upon 
which  it  feeds.  The  crowd  hisn't  a  collection  of  hindividuals 
— hit's  a  Thing.  .  .  ."  Finn  remembered  how  the  man 
had  stopped  as  though  puzzled  at  his  own  words. 
"Wot  I  mean,"  he  had  gone  on,  "is  that  there's  something 
behind  a  crowd  ...  "  and  then  he  had  stopped  again, 
nor  could  Finn  get  him  to  explain.  Yet  what  that  little  cob- 
bler had  tried  to  say  was  exactly  what  Ellen  Masters  and 
the  previous  speaker  had  been  putting  into  words.  Paris 
Asthar  had  said  it  more  than  once.  And  then,  again,  it 
seemed  nonsense. 

John  Bluett  had  been  trying  to  follow  Ellen  Masters  with  a 
look  of  bewilderment  upon  his  good-natured  face  that  brought 
memories  to  Finn  of  the  Bishop  of  Whitechapel.  It  was 
that  look  which  it  often  seemed  to  Finn  was  a  characteristic 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  All  sorts  of  people  had  that 
look — people  for  whom  the  age  of  transition  was  flying  too 
fast.  They  were  breathless  and  bewildered. 

Bluett  now  broke  in  to  protest  against  the  previous  speak- 
er's idea  of  democracy,  which  "to  us  practical  politicians 
and  men  of  affairs  is  something  more  than  a — a — sort  of  rowdy 
animal  without  any  idea  of  a  vote  ..."  which  brought 
in  Fitz  with  a  sarcastic: 

"You've  got  votes  on  the  brain,  Mr.  Chairman." 

John  Bluett  was  righteously  indignant.     "I  hope  I  have," 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  261 

he  said,  almost  spluttering.  "Is  it  not  the  vote  that  has 
placed  England  where  she  is.  .  .  ." 

"Where  is  that?" 

"Where  is  what?  Why  of  course — of  course"  (he  hesitated 
a  moment,  then  plunged)  .  .  .  "of  course  ahead  of  every 
other  nation — the  home  of  liberty  and  free  speech — the  home 
of  the  Bible — the  home  that  all  other  nations  look  to  as  a 
'ome  from  'ome;"  and  then,  completely  forgetting  himself: 
"everyone  knows  that  the  Union  Jack.  .  .  ."  He  remem- 
bered himself  .  .  .  "but  of  course  this  is  an  International 
gathering.  .  .  ." 

"In  which,  unfortunately,  foreigners  are  present,"  inserted 
Fitz.  The  meeting  laughed,  but  to  Finn  it  had  seemed  as 
the  chairman  spoke  that  something  was  speaking  through 
him,  something  irresistible.  It  was  the  feeling  he  had  about 
the  big  Irishman  as  about  the  young  aristocrat  and  Ellen 
Masters.  In  a  sense,  they  were  but  channels  for  a  message — • 
but  from  whom? — for  what?  For  one  nauseating  moment 
he  had  the  feeling  that  all  those  about  him  were  automata — 
that  he  himself  was  an  automaton.  Then  he  put  it  away. 

But  is  was  quite  clear  that  in  this  meeting,  as  in  those 
others  he  had  so  often  attended,  there  were  distinct  currents. 
Men  and  women  seemed  to  be  sent  into  the  world  by  different 
streams,  to  do  their  particular  work  in  those  streams,  and  al- 
though the  streams  sometimes  blended  momentarily,  yet,  as 
a  whole,  they  remained  separate.  And  then  again  it  came  to 
him  that  what  was  really  happening  in  the  world  about  him 
was  a  blending  of  some  of  those  streams,  a  blending  that 
men  called,  indifferently,  Democracy,  or  Internationalism,  or 
Religion,  according  to  the  facet  upon  which  they  looked. 
And  the  blending  was  difficult. 

And  now  Breschoff  was  speaking  again.  Finn,  lost  in  his 
thoughts,  had  a  vague  notion,  as  he  ruminated,  that  several 
delegates  had  risen  to  support  the  Irishman — to  urge  the  use 
of  force  to  kill  force — war  to  stop  war.  It  was  then  that 
Old  Breschoff  had  intervened. 

"I  have  seen  more  revolutions  than  any  man  or  woman  here 
has  winters,"  he  said — "I  have  heard  the  rattle  of  the  rifle 
blend  with  the  rattle  of  death — and  I,  Old  Breschoff,  once 
known  as  the  Grandfather  of  the  Revolution,  tell  you  that 
blood  never  yet  staunched  blood,  hate  killed  hate,  or  force, 


262  GODS 

force.  Love  alone  can  destroy  hate,  and  non-resistance  annul 
force.  Love  is  the  universal  solvent." 

"But  it  cannot  solve  the  problem  of  defence  of  country," 
interposed  Vallon,  for  the  first  time,  from  behind  his  smoked 
glasses  in  that  half-blind  gentle  way  of  his,  only  that  in  his 
voice,  to  those  who  knew  him,  there  lay  unaccustomed  fierce- 
ness. "That  is  the  real  problem." 

The  Irishman  flung  in  bitterly  to  ask  whether  he  would  let 
their  masters  tread  them,  defenceless,  under  the  iron  hoof 
of  brute  force  to  force  them  to  the  slaughter  benches. 

Old  Breschoff  had  replied,  calmly:  "And  you — what  would 
you  have?  Would  you  have  a  holocaust  in  our  streets?  Would 
you  have  demon  passions  unchained  which  cannot  again  be 
leashed?  Would  you  have  those  masses  who  are  only  now 
finding,  however  blindly,  their  way  to  freedom,  now  nosing 
for  the  light,  thrust  back  by  superior  force  into  shameful  for- 
getfulness?  Would  you  have  the  sun  of  the  rising  democracy 
blotted  out  by  the  dark  clouds  of  reaction  as" — he  pointed 
through  the  windows — "the  blue  sky  outside  is  dulling  under 
the  thunderclouds  that  are  rolling  up? 

"But,"  and  his  voice  took  a  stronger  note,  "I  tell  you  that 
war  to-day  is  impossible.  The  modern  man  is  too  nervous, 
too  highly  strung,  too  civilised,  to  kill  his  fellows  in  the  battue 
of  a  European  war.  Most  of  our  fellow  beings  could  not 
kill  a  sheep — much  less  a  man." 

"Man-killing  is  the  easier — I've  tried  both,"  said  the  Irish- 
man. 

"I  tell  you  war  is  impossible — there  is  a  new  spirit  in  the 
world,"  replied  the  Russian.  "We  shall  not  again  hear  the 
thunder  of  the  guns.  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off  as  a  peal  of  thunder  came  rolling  overhead, 
to  be  followed  by  a  lightning  flash  which  illumined  the  in- 
creasing darkness  of  the  place. 

"There  you  have  your  answer,"  said  the  big  man  dourly. 
"Where  is  your  policy?" 

"My  policy  is  the  oldest  policy  in  the  world,"  went  on 
the  old  man  in  that  gentle  voice  of  his.  The  policy  of  "Love 
your  enemies!" 

As  Finn  sat  listening,  there  came  to  him  again  old  voices 
to  murmur  in  his  ears.  It  seemed  to  him,  as  Breschoff  spoke, 
that  new  lights  were  being  thrown  on  old  places.  Old  prob- 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  263 

lems  were  solving  themselves.  Perhaps  love  was  the  heart 
of  religion.  He  had  felt  that  so  often — but  his  love  had  so 
much  hate  in  it — something  like  that  big  Irishman  felt.  But, 
still,  love. 

His  old  grandmother  had  said  the  same  as  she  died:  "God 
is  love,"  she  had  said,  and  just  before:  "Even  death  cannot 
kill  love."  Sometimes  he  thought  that  death  and  love  like 
hate  and  love,  were  but  two  facets  of  some  common  fact — 
were,  perhaps,  the  same  thing. 

But  the  Irishman  had  interpolated:  "That  is  an  ethic — 
not  a  policy.  How  will  you  apply  it?" 

"Refuse  to  kill.    That  is  how  we  will  apply  it." 

"And  you  will  have  democracy  slaughtered  for  its  refusal 
because  of  this  policy  of  the  coward.  You  will  have  our  young 
men,  weaponless,  slaughtered  like  defenceless  sheep.  Would 
you  have  them  crucified?" 

The  old  Russian  had  looked  long  and  sadly  at  his  fierce 
opponent  and  then  he  had  said  in  a  voice  so  low  that  it  was 
difficult  to  catch:  "Yes,  I  would.  The  Christ  that  is  coming 
to  save  the  world  will  be  a  Christ  in  corduroy — not  the  Man 
with  the  Red  Flag  on  a  barricade.  He  will  hang,  he  must 
hang,  on  his  cross,  crowned  with  the  thorns  of  his  beliefs. 
He  will  be  hanged,  and  be  mocked,  and  die — but  his  death 
will  not  be  in  vain.  He  will  die  for  a  world."  And  then 
he  had  collapsed  in  his  seat,  as  though  he  had  been  fighting 
with  something. 

There  had  been  a  great  silence  as  though  something  were 
grappling  with  each  person  there.  It  was  as  though  some 
presence  had  been  with  them  in  the  room  and,  having  de- 
livered its  message,  had  passed  out  again. 

Vallon  had  followed  after  a  few  moments  with  an  appeal 
mainly  directed  to  his  comrade  Gutenmann,  of  an  exquisite 
courtesy  of  phrase  and  diction.  It  was  as  though  that  Pres- 
ence were  still  felt.  He  had  been  saying  that,  in  the  event 
of  a  European  war,  his  French  comrades  would  refuse  to  vote 
the  war  credits  in  the  Chamber,,  and  had  added,  significantly: 
"if  our  German  comrades  do  the  same." 

It  was  then  that  the  German  had  come  for  the  first  time 
into  the  discussion,  heavily: 

"If  ve  do  not  move  in  de  Reichstag,  and  if  France  see  de 
chance  to  get  tack  Alsace-Lorraine?" 


264  GODS 

It  was  as  though  a  new  spirit  had  entered  the  place. 

And  then  Vallon  had  blenched  a  little  as  he  said:  "That 
is  another  matter.  .  .  .  Alsace  stands  outside  all  else. 
Then  .  .  .  perhaps  .  .  .  then  .  .  .  then" — he  drew 
himself  up  as  he  peered  blindly  through  his  shaded  spectacles — 
.  .  .  "then  we  shall  fight — Social  Democrat  and  Conserva- 
tive, Republican  and  Monarchist,  side  by  side,  proud  to  die 
for  France."  He  turned  for  the  last  time  and  looked,  sadly, 
proudly,  at  Gutenmann,  who  sat  unmoved,  crouched  over  his 
papers. 

It  was  John  Bluett  who  tried  to  bring  back  the  meeting 
to  what  he  called  "facts,"  by  saying  that  instead  of  taking 
steps  to  prevent  war  they  had  been  talking  about  country 
and  killing.  "Gentlemen — I  mean  Ladies  and  Gentlemen," 
he  had  said,  "I  ask  you  as  a  practical  politician  standing  for 
a  responsible  and  practical  party — is  this  sanity?  Where 
are  your  facts?" 

It  was  then  Gutenmann  rose  for  the  first  time  and  made 
the  speech  which  lived  long  in  Finn's  memory. 

"You  vant  facts,  Mr.  Shairman,"  he  had  said  in  his  heavy 
German  guttural.  "Here  is  von — de  fact  of  de  Sherman  Em- 
pire. Dat  and  de  British  Empire  are  de  two  biggest  facts  in 
de  vorld.  And  vot  is  dis  fact? 

"It  is  de  fact  of  a  nation  in  arms — of  sevendy  millions 
of  peoples — ready  from  a  boot  button  to  a  big  gun  .  .  . 
ready  for  vot? — for  killing.  Behind  dose  sevendy  millions 
stands  von  vill,  von  voice — de  voice  neither  of  Kaiser  nor 
Junker — but  de  voice  of  Shermany — de  voice  of  de  Sherman 
discipline,  de  brazen  voice,  and  de  mailed  fist — von  voice  dat 
svings  de  whole — de  voice,  de  instinct,  of  country.  A  voice, 
if  you  vill,  clanked  into  de  Sherman  mind  from  de  cradle  to 
de  grave — de  voice  of  Vaterland. 

"And  do  you  know  vot  Vaterland  means?"  he  had  con- 
tinued. "It  means  iron  obedience;  automatic  vill;  killing 
vidout  conscience;  var  widout  mercy.  It  means,"  and  he 
had  paused  a  moment  as  he  said  it,  "it  means  de  vorship  of 
gods.  It  means  de  Sherman  Superman;  de  Sherman  Michael; 
de  Sherman  God" 

"But  will  the  German  proletariat  fight?"  asked  the  Irish- 
man. "Will  they  fight?  That  is  the  question." 

As  he  spoke,  the  sound  of  a  military  band,  coming  out  of 


"GOD  OF  BATTLES"  265 

the  distance,  which  had  petered  through  once  or  twice  as  the 
German  had  been  speaking,  now  swelled  in  volume  as  it  ap- 
proached, the  speaker  pausing  to  listen  with  the  others.  It 
was  playing  "The  British  Grenadiers,"  which,  as  it  passed 
the  hall,  burst  into  "Rule  Britannia!"  the  crash  of  drum  and 
brass  being  drowned  by  the  rolling  cheers  of  the  crowd. 

"Vill  dey  fight?  Ask  dose,  outside,  if  dey  vill.  .  .  .  Dey 
vill  not  ask  themselves  dat  or  any  udder  question  when  der 
Tag — de  Day — comes.  De  Socialist,  like  de  Conservative 
Junker,  vill  hear  only  de  clang  of  de  trumpet — de  voice  of 
de  drill  sergeant — de  crash  of  de  Krupp.  Krupp  vill  call, 
and  dey  vill  follow  as  de  little  children  followed  de  Pied  Piper. 
And  de  Piper  who  vill  do  de  piping  vill  be  Michael— de 
Sherman  God.  Dose,  Mr.  Shairman,  are  de  facts."  He  sat 
down  slowly  in  the  silence.  Behind  him,  Finn  seemed  to  see 
a  terrible  figure  in  gleaming  armour — the  German  Michael. 

It  was  in  the  silence  which  followed  that  John  Bluett,  be- 
wildered, had  said:  "Then  there  is  nothing  for  us  to  do  here. 
If  those  are  the  facts,  God  help  the  International ! " 

And  it  was  Fitz  who,  for  the  first  time  solemn,  had  answered: 
"He  won't.  He's  a  national,  not  an  International  God — still 
the  God  of  Battles." 

And  it  was  on  those  words  that  the  meeting  had  broken 
up,  with  Finn,  torn  by  new  emotions,  as  by  old  emotions  to 
which  he  had  long  been  closed,  going  out  from  the  building 
to  take  the  step  that  was  to  be  so  decisive  in  his  life:  to 
write,  not  the  "picturesque,"  but  the  facts — Gutenmann's 
facts— the  facts  of  the  God  of  Battles. 

Once  more  the  thin  grey  line  dragged  itself  into  the  heart 
of  the  mists  and  into  that  fiery  sun  which  was  now  the  brazen 
throat  of  Moloch.  Once  more  he  saw  the  piteous,  helpless 
faces,  to  be  led  as  sheep  to  the  slaughter.  Led  by  what? 
By  men  or  by  gods? 


PART  III 
LOVE  AND  DEATH 


XXVII 

OUT    OF    THE   GREEN    WATERS 

Of  course,  looked  at  from  all  ordinary  human  viewpoints, 
Finn's  action  was  mad  enough.  But  Finn  was  mad,  with  that 
splendid  madness  which  has  always  come  up  to  defy  the  cal- 
culations of  the  mighty.  Someone  has  written  of  this  sort  of 
madness  that  "it  is  the  graving  tool  of  the  Power  Behind, 
flashing  in  the  shadows,  and  with  its  own  secret  paths." 

He  knew  what  he  was  doing.  He  knew  that  his  article  upon 
the  Peace  Conference,  about  which  Thrum  had  left  special  in- 
structions that  it  was  not  to  be  sub-edited,  and  handed  in  just 
before  the  paper  went  to  press,  would  be  uncensored.  The 
result  was  that  "The  Earth"  the  next  morning  appeared  with 
the  "facts,"  un-dressed  and  unashamed.  They  were  Guten- 
mann's  brutal  facts,  taken  from  the  lips  of  Gutenmann  and 
placed  in  the  lips  of  the  statesmen  of  Europe,  irrespective  of 
country — the  statesmen  who,  as  the  writer  said,  had  made  them 
possible. 

It  was  an  indictment  of  Twentieth  Century  statesmanship 
and  civilisation,  of  a  clarity  surprising,  but,  the  unforgivable, 
it  was  also  a  knife  placed  at  the  throat  of  the  policy  of  the  very 
paper  in  which  these  "facts"  appeared. 

It  was  not  at  all  that  the  writer  was  clear  about  what  was 
called  Internationalism  any  more  than  he  was  clear  about 
the  faith  of  the  rising  democracy.  Indeed,  the  more  he  looked 
into  the  one  and  the  other,  the  more  unsure  he  felt. 

This  was  partly  due  to  Ireland,  the  nationalism  of  which 
had,  in  a  way,  left  him  immensely  confused,  it  being,  as  he 
naturally  supposed,  the  antithesis  of  Internationalism,  and 
yet  it  was  this  very  Nationalism  which  had  drawn  him  so 
strongly.  With  this,  however,  he  felt  that  appeal  of  the  Democ- 
racy which  also  drew  him. 

The  thing  that  moved  him  in  the  latter  was  something  rather 


270  GODS 

of  permeation — something  of  the  call  of  those  voiceless  mil- 
lions out  there  in  the  great  world — those  millions  that  had 
made  themselves  first  felt  to  him  that  day  on  the  Embank- 
ment. Theirs,  if  it  were  a  faith,  was  a  dumb  faith,  "wor- 
shipped in  temples  not  made  with  hands."  But  whether  for 
good  or  ill,  he  stood  for  those  dumb  things.  He  felt  he  had 
to  speak  for  those  who  could  not  speak  for  themselves. 

The  results  of  his  article,  for  him,  were  annihilating.  But  he 
had  expected  annihilation.  Yet,  he  had  never  felt  so  sure  of 
himself,  with  an  undercurrent  of  the  exaltation  that  came  to 
him,  at  moments  unbidden,  out  of  nothingness. 

After  Thrum's  hammer  had  descended,  and  when  he  had 
spent  all  his  money  and  was  very  low  down,  with  all  doors 
turned  against  him  and  his  writing,  for  the  hammer  of  Thrum 
was  heavy  and  his  arm,  like  his  memory,  long,  Lanthorn  gave 
him  a  "lift"  by  sending  him  to  Ireland  to  write  a  series  upon 
the  faith  that  was  Ireland's. 

Ireland  was  not  Fleet  Street.  In  Ireland  he  was  not  ashamed 
of  his  shabby  tweed  suit.  From  Father  Con,  as  from  Kitty, 
he  got  his  old  welcome,  but,  to  his  great  grief,  Johnny  the 
Saint  was  not  there  to  come  scuttering  along  the  platform 
to  take  his  bag  and  to  bless  him.  "Johnny  had  departed 
this  life,"  as  Kitty  O'Halloran  said,  "in  a  great  blaze  of 
glory  entirely  and  had  had  the  beautifullest  makings  of  a 
funeral  you  ever  saw  in  your  life."  All  the  town,  it  appeared, 
had  turned  out  to  do  honour  to  the  passing  of  Johnny's 
ragged  blessedness  and  now,  as  Father  Con  said,  Dunhallow 
was  in  the  way  of  placing  a  halo  around  his  head  "and  sure 
small  blame  to  them.  For  didn't  God  love  innocents  and 
children?" 

Black  Rock,  in  the  way  that  it  had,  got  to  know  that 
"Masther  Finn  was  in  trouble,"  and  in  its  own  way  did 
everything  it  could  to  show  him  that  he  was  beloved.  A 
ragged  sheepish  giant  with  his  elbows  sticking  out  of  the 
blue  of  his  woollen  shirt,  would  always  be  at  the  door  with 
a  crab,  or  a  few  seagulls'  eggs,  or  a  red  gurnard,  "fresh 
caught  from  the  deep  sea  for  the  Masther's  breakfast." 

Crux's  ruined  towers  stood  down  by  the  edge  of  the  waters 
with  the  winds  of  heaven  blowing  through  their  jagged  timbers. 
The  patent  chapel  was  being  used  by  the  villagers  for  all 
sorts  of  utilitarian  purposes,  including  pigs — "poor  sowls  that 


OUT  OF  THE  GREEN  WATERS       271 

had  a  right  to  a  roof  as  well  as  the  next  Christian,"  as  the  lady 
known  as  "ould  Biddy  the  Rag"  had  put  it  to  Finn  in  plaintive 
apologia.  But,  looking  out,  four  square  to  eternity,  stood 
the  chapel  of  the  old  faith,  unconquered  and  unconquerable. 

It  was  the  full  flood  of  the  Irish  summer  afternoon  when 
Finn  found  his  way  to  the  House  of  Dreams.  As  he  walked 
across  the  yard,  he  could  see  through  the  windows  of  the  glass 
verandah  Mrs.  O'Hara,  now  a  little  feeble,  but  with  the  grey 
eyes  and  black  brows  unquenchable,  telling  her  beads  upon  her 
knees  in  the  little  room  beyond.  She  rose  to  her  feet  to  give 
him  her  own  bountiful  blessing,  holding  both  his  hands  in 
hers.  It  was  her  benediction,  for  she  never  ventured  to  kiss 
him  or  he,  her.  There  was  a  sort  of  shyness  between  them. 

As  he  was  greeting  the  old  lady,  a  shadow  fell  across  the 
floor.  He  turned  to  find  a  tall,  almost  strange,  young  woman 
looking  at  him  with  that  cold  penetration  of  long  ago.  It 
was  Deirdre  Asthar. 

In  the  four  years  that  had  gone  since  they  had  met,  since 
that  day  when  after  the  demonstration  in  the  square  she  had 
accused  him  of  selling  his  country  to  Crux  for  thirty  pieces 
of  silver,  when,  turning  on  her  heel,  she  had  finished:  "I 
think  Judas  must  have  been  an  Irishman!" — Deirdre  Asthar 
had  changed  much.  It  was  not  only  the  physical  transforma- 
tion from  girlhood  into  the  splendour  of  an  awakening  woman- 
hood— it  was  the  psychological  change  informing  the  other. 

The  young  woman  who  stood  before  him  this  August  evening 
was  a  young  woman  not  only  sure  of  herself — she  had  always 
been  that — but  a  young  woman,  conscious.  He  caught  it  in- 
stantly— that  new  quality.  It  was  the  quality  which  had  stolen 
into  himself  since  that  day  of  the  Peace  Conference  to  which 
Thrum  had  sent  him — perhaps  had  always  been  with  him. 
Adversity  had  hardened  him  into  consciousness — had  struck 
fire  from  the  hidden  depths.  He  wondered  what  it  was  that 
had  brought  consciousness  to  this  girl. 

There  was  something  translucent  in  her  gaze  as  it  turned 
indifferently  away  from  him — or  was  it  indifference?  It  might 
as  easily  have  been  close  concern.  It  was  that  quality  of 
elusiveness  which  had  so  often  baffled  him  in  this  girl  of 
queer  impulses  and  hidden  meanings.  It  was  something  that 
permeated  her  whole  being.  It  was  there  in  the  fair  clean 
neck  with  the  hair  cut  to  its  base;  in  the  rather  short,  strong 


272  GODS 

nose,  and  in  the  eyes  under  their  clean  brows  that  looked  out 
across  the  grey  stones  of  the  mossy  courtyard.  It  was  the 
same  Deirdre — with  a  difference. 

And  it  was  the  Deirdre  that  brought  back  that  dull  pang 
which  he  thought  he  had  buried  for  ever. 

It  was  in  that  moment  he  knew  he  could  never  forget. 
Deirdre  Asthar  was  of  the  sort  who  are  not  forgotten. 

Then  it  came  to  him.  She  had  in  her,  as  such  women  had, 
a  quality  that  was  eternal. 

These  things  swept  across  his  mind  as  wind  shadows  across 
the  face  of  a  mountain.  And  then,  with  a  cold  little  bow,  she 
had  gone  past  him,  leaving  Mrs.  O'Hara  to  look  after  her 
with  that  loving  hopeless  look  of  hers,  which  somehow  fixed 
the  pang  in  Finn's  heart.  Then  she  had  turned  to  Finn  and 
pressed  his  hand  to  lead  him  into  the  parlour.  The  eyes  were 
wet  with  tears. 

Mrs.  O'Hara  had  another  surprise  for  him.  Paris  Asthar 
and  Stella  Fay  were  staying  at  Black  Rock  for  Asthar's  health. 
It  seemed  that  his  legs  would  take  him  where  he  didn't  want 
to  go,  and  the  people  had  begun  to  whisper  about  him. 

He  lay  within,  propped  up  on  a  sort  of  settee  and  swathed, 
despite  the  sun  outside,  in  a  magnificent  blotched  rug  of 
llama  wool.  Finn,  who  had  not  seen  him  for  two  years, 
was  shocked  at  his  appearance.  The  whole  face  seemed  to 
have  fallen  in  upon  itself,  whipped  as  it  was  with  a  network 
of  fine  lines  that  cris-crossed  themselves  in  tanglement  in- 
extricable. Patsey  in  one  corner  sat  watching  him,  never 
removing  his  eyes  from  the  man's  face.  Patsey  himself  had 
scarcely  grown,  and  the  head  was  now  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  body,  a  heavy  blossom  upon  a  slender  stalk. 

But  Asthar  greeted  Finn  strongly  enough,  in  a  voice  that 
now  seemed  like  a  bell  coming  from  a  great  distance,  offering 
him  his  left  hand.  "Can't  be  bothered  to  lift  the  other — a 
contrary  devil — won't  do  what  I  tell  him."  He  looked  down 
on  the  rug  as  though  he  could  see  through  it  to  the  unruly 
member  lying  underneath.  "But  it's  the  hand  nearest  the 
heart— eh  Finn?" 

He  asked  it  with  that  faint  touch  of  the  brogue  which  in 
his  more  extreme  moments  crept  into  his  voice  and  looked 
affectionately  at  Finn,  who,  as  of  old,  would  have  warmed  to 


OUT  OF  THE  GREEN  WATERS       273 

him  had  it  not  been  for  the  shock  of  his  appearance  which 
still  clung. 

Asthar's  eyes  searched  his  face  as  though  he  would  ask  him 
a  question,  but  seemed  to  change  his  mind. 

"Don't  look  so  scared,  Finn,"  he  said,  "I'm  not  dead  yet. 
I  am  not  going  to  die,"  he  added  more  fiercely.  And  then: 

"There  is  nothing  inevitable  in  death.  Death  is  but  a 
way  of  thinking.  If  we  can  persuade  ourselves  we  will  not 
die,  Death  can  never  overtake  us."  And  then  after  a  pause. 
.  .  .  "Man  is  a  spirit,  Finn.  We  are  the  stuff  of  which 
the  gods  are  made."  The  eyes  blazed  in  the  parchment  of 
the  skull.  And  then  there  came  from  the  mouth  a  meaning- 
less babble — the  lower  jaw  had  dropped. 

"Creeping  paralysis,"  Mrs.  O'Hara  had  whispered. 

And  then  Finn  had  caught  the  great  dark  eyes,  the  only 
things  unchanged  in  that  human  wreckage,  looking  behind 
him,  and  he  had  turned  to  find  Stella  Fay  standing  there,  re- 
garding him  silently.  She  stood  there  with  something  of  a 
ghost  about  her,  or,  as  he  put  it  to  himself,  as  one  who  might 
fade  away  even  as  he  looked,  like  a  wraith.  She  also  had 
taken  a  new  quality  since  he  had  seen  her  last,  also  some  two 
years  ago — a  quality  of  winsomeness.  She  was  no  longer  so 
desperate  looking. 

She  had  run  in  on  him  and  to  his  astonishment  had  thrown 
both  her  long  arms  about  his  neck  and  had  kissed  him  quickly, 
closely,  but,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  not  passionately  but  affec- 
tionately— not  upon  his  lips  but  upon  his  hair  and 
forehead,  pulling  him  down  to  her  before  the  great  wonder- 
ing eyes  of  Patsey.  And  then  she  had  run  out  with  that 
awkward — graceful  limp  and  had  gone  before  he  could  get 
his  breath. 

Asthar  smiled  but  said  nothing.  He  had  the  gift  of  boun- 
teous silence. 

But  as  Finn,  bewildered,  looked  about  him,  he  caught  the 
outline  of  Deirdre  Asthar  passing  quickly  across  the  window, 
her  head  a  little  bent  and  her  face  averted. 

She  had  come  in,  her  arms  full  of  roses,  had  flashed  a 
breathless  look  at  Finn,  whose  face  was  one  crimson  flush, 
and  going  quickly  over  to  her  half-brother,  had  thrown  the 
blood-red  blossoms  upon  the  rug  before  him,  leaving  the  dead 
white  of  his  face  with  the  blazing  eyes  above  in  stark  relief. 


274  GODS 

She  had  leant  over  him  to  speak  to  him,  had  arranged  his 
cushions  behind  him,  and  had  gone  out,  with  a  little  stoop- 
ing seeking  gesture  of  the  head,  passing  Finn  without  glancing 
at  him.  But  he  had  noticed  that  although  she  spoke  to  Paris 
tenderly  enough,  she  seemed  at  moments  not  to  be  able  to 
bear  to  look  at  him,  and  would  turn  her  head  away. 

Then  he  was  sure  she  had  seen  and  of  course  had  not 
understood  that  the  kiss  Stella  Fay  had  given  him  might 
have  been  that  of  a  sister,  with  something  loving,  intimate, 
added.  But  that  could  not  be  explained  to  her — and,  any- 
how, what  did  it  matter?  She  was  nothing  to  him — or, 
rather,  he  was  nothing  to  her.  She  had  passed  beyond  him, 
unattainable  as  a  star. 

All  such  things  were  so  impossible  of  explanation — yet  Finn 
knew  the  kiss  Stella  Fay  had  given  him  was  different  to  those 
others.  That  first  time  when  before  the  dinner  at  "The  Clois- 
ters" she  had  said  to  him:  "Little  boy,  I'm  going  to  spoil 
you;"  and  that  other  time  down  by  the  green  waters  when  she 
had  pressed  her  wet  body  to  his  and  with  her  red  lips  had 
kissed  him  twice  full  on  his  own.  And  that  last  time — for 
he  had  never  kissed  her  afterwards — that  night  in  the  valley 
under  a  moon  of  passion  when  their  lips  had  sought  each  other 
to  cling  together  in  an  ecstasy  of  living,  that  night  when  she 
had  sought  to  keep  out  the  sound  of  Deirdre's  voice  by  her 
hot  kisses  upon  lips  and  eyes. 

But  in  this  kiss,  to-day,  there  was  something  of  affection 
— of  farewell.  And  it  was  in  that  kiss  he  knew,  for  the  first 
time,  that  Stella  Fay  loved  him. 

He  shivered  a  little  there  in  the  hot  sunlight  and  looked 
at  Patsey,  who  was  now  staring  at  him — not  at  Paris  Asthar. 

"Take  Patsey  out,"  said  Asthar  with  a  smile  on  his  face 
that  might  have  been  the  grin  of  a  gargoyle.  "He's  always 
looking  at  me — aren't  you,  Patsey?  I  can't  stand  his  eyes." 
He  laughed,  but  there  was  anxiety  in  his  laugh.  Finn  had 
never  seen  Paris  Asthar  anxious  before. 

"Do  you  know  what  I  heard  him  tell  Togo  there,  only 
last  night,  when  he  thought  I  had  gone  to  bed?"  (the  little 
Japanese  had  come  in  like  a  gnome  and  having  made  his  jerky 
little  bow  to  Finn  had  busied  himself  about  his  master). 
"He  said  to  him:  l You're  only  a  poor  yellow  heathen  and 
there's  no  harm  tellin'  you — but  you  won't  have  your  masther 


OUT  OF  THE  GREEN  WATERS       275 

long — sure  didn't  I  see  death  in  his  face  and  three  scaldy 
crows  on  the  roof- tree  in  yesterday's  dawn.'  And  he's  been 
telling  Mrs.  O'Hara  something  about  Stella.  I  can't  get  it  out 
of  her,  but  she  is  so  superstitious — and  she's  troubled. 

"A  most  uncanny  person  to  have  about  the  place.  He's 
always  looking  at  Stella  these  latter  days  with  those  great 
round  eyes  of  his,  and  they  give  me  the  creeps."  He  pretended 
to  shudder,  but  the  pretence  had  passed  into  the  reality  and 
the  muscles  of  his  lower  jaw  began  to  rattle  like  castanets, 
causing  Togo  to  bring  him  some  brandy,  which  he  poured 
between  them  with  difficulty,  spilling  some  of  it  over  the  breast 
of  his  dressing  gown  of  stuffed  silk.  Asthar  tried  to  steady 
his  mouth  with  his  left  hand,  and  altogether  it  was  a  pitiable 
exhibition. 

But  all  the  time  Patsey  stared  at  him,  until  at  last  Finn, 
fearing  he  would  laugh  or  cry  out  or  something,  literally  ran 
out  of  the  place  into  the  dark  night.  He  found  his  way  along 
the  valley  and  down  the  winding  path  to  the  Cove  lying  with 
its  golden  sands  lapped  between  the  low-lying  rocks  covered 
with  seaweed  on  one  side  and,  on  the  other,  the  shadow  of 
Carrickmore  which  towered  up  into  the  stars — the  stars  that, 
seawards,  hung  low  and  dewy  over  the  blackened  waters  under 
the  half-moon. 

The  sea,  strewn  with  Stardust,  was  heavy,  with  an  uneasy 
stirring  on  its  sullen  gleaming  surface.  Sentient,  it  rose  and 
fell  in  satiny  pulsations  like  a  vast  pall.  The  great  scimitar 
of  moon  hung  low  over  the  waters  as  though  the  thing  that 
breathed  below  were  dragging  it  downwards.  The  concavity 
of  the  night  was  soundless  save  for  the  plash  oT  a  heavy  curl 
where  it  sank  exhausted  on  the  beach,  which  glimmered  in 
the  starshine  like  Hull  gold.  A  solitary  seabird  cried  away  in 
the  heart  of  the  blackness. 

Finn's  heart  was  very  heavy — heavy  as  the  leaden  surge  it- 
self. He  stretched  his  length  on  the  hot  sand  and  looked  up 
into  the  darkness,  lost  himself  in  the  velvety  speckled  dome 
above,  and  felt  the  secret  attraction  of  the  planet  that  seemed 
to  lie  so  heavy  on  the  tides  and  on  him.  As  he  lay  there, 
himself  now  part  of  the  smother  of  earth,  sea,  and  sky,  he 
felt  again  that  desire  to  lose  himself  in  the  heart  of  the  sea 
as  he  had  once  felt  the  desire  in  that  tabernacle  of  long  ago 
to  lose  himself  upon  the  bosom  of  Infinity.  But  he  did  not 


276  GODS 

want  to  lose  consciousness — but  to  find  it — even  in  that 
moment  he  knew  that. 

The  pall  of  waters  was  broken  by  a  great  wave  that  creamed 
itself  palely  out  of  the  night  to  fling  its  thunderous  length  upon 
the  beach — to  be  followed  by  the  brooding  silence. 

It  was  then  that  it  crept  to  him  where  he  lay. 

It  came  creeping  to  him  over  the  sea  with  something  ele- 
mental in  it,  a  woman's  voice  out  there  in  the  velvet  of  the 
night.  It  was  a  kind  of  ullagoane  arising  and  falling  in  the 
minor  and  then  dying  away  in  that  place  of  enchantments. 

Who  could  be  singing  out  there  in  that  blackness?  The 
boats  were  all  in.  He  felt  a  stirring  of  the  skin. 

He  listened  again,  but  could  hear  nothing — and  then  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  had  imagined  it  all.  The  night  seas 
had  always  held  queer  noises  as  they  broke  into  the  caves 
under  Carrickmore. 

Behind  him  he  heard  a  soft  scatter  of  sand  in  the  stillness. 
He  turned  half  on  his  elbow  to  see  a  figure  coming  towards 
him  wrapped  in  a  long  fleecy  cloak  which,  in  that  light,  seemed 
to  have  been  woven  by  golden  spiders.  And  then,  unheed- 
ing, the  figure  had  almost  stumbled  in  the  shadows  over  the 
man  lying  at  its  feet. 

He  had  turned  to  rear  his  long  bulk  under  the  stars  which 
now  seemed  almost  to  be  touching  the  earth.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  he  was  looking  at  a  ghost. 

As  he  looked,  the  voice  had  once  more  crept  out  of  the 
night.  And  the  figure  had  turned  its  head  to  listen,  dropping 
a  corner  of  the  fleecy  wrap  as  it  did  so  and  leaving  revealed 
to  him  the  head  and  neck  of  Deirdre. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked  stupidly,  in  that  glamour  forgetting 
her  hardness  and  indifference. 

"You  should  know."  And  the  low  voice  with  its  contralto 
note  was  vibrant  as,  with  her  old  gesture,  she  shook  her  face 
clear  from  its  veil  of  hair.  It  astonished  him.  Deirdre  Asthar 
had  never  shown  feeling  before.  For  the  first  time,  she  was 
incredibly  concerning  herself  with  him. 

Something  rose  within  him  like  a  blinding  flame — only  the 
next  moment  to  die  away. 

And  then,  still  bewildered,  he  had  asked:   "Why?" 

"You  should  know.    You  do  know."    He  was  again  aston- 


OUT  OF  THE  GREEN  WATERS  277 

ished  at  her  feeling.  It  left  him  stupid,  seeking,  like  a  man, 
blind,  to  find  the  door  of  his  own  prison. 

"I  do  not."    And  he  said  it  honestly  enough. 

"You  have  kissed  the  lips  which  are  singing  out  there. 
You  have  kissed  them  within  the  last  hour."  And  she  had 
laughed — a  little  stinging  laugh. 

Then  it  burst  upon  him.  The  voice  from  the  seas  was 
Stella's.  It  was  Stella  Fay  who  was  swimming  and  singing 
out  there. 

"I  did  not,"  he  answered  in  simple  directness. 

"Then  you  are  also  a  liar,"  said  the  girl  with  a  calculated 
brutality.  "I  saw  you  kiss  her." 

"You  did  not,"  he  said.  "It  is  you  who  lie."  But  even 
as  he  spoke  in  his  anger,  he  knew  she  thought  it.  And  who 
would  not  have  thought  it? 

And  now  he  was  enraged  with  her.  It  was  the  mood  of 
that  day  when  he  had  written  his  last  article  in  "The  Earth." 
A  mood  that  could  not  be  controlled.  It  was  that  Berserk 
madness  which  had  always  come  upon  him  since  a  child  when 
unjustly  treated. 

"You  dare  to  say  I  lie.  Who  are  you  that  dare  to  say  it?" 
he  had  gone  on  in  low,  fierce  tones,  looking  her  in  the  eyes. 
"You  have  never  been  fair  to  me.  You  have  always  been 
unjust.  You  have  always  been  .  .  ."  he  hesitated  a  moment, 
then  pounced:  "baffling.  You — who  are  you  that  you  should 
speak  to  me  so?"  It  seemed  the  pent  up  anger  of  years  that 
at  last  was  breaking  forth. 

"Stop!"  she  said,  and  in  her  eye  as  it  turned  was  that 
metallic  flash  he  knew  so  well.  "If  you  did  not  kiss  Stella 
Fay  an  hour  ago — she  kissed  you.  And  you  have  kissed  her 
before.  You  know  you  have  kissed  her."  And  then,  after 
pausing  one  breathless  instant,  she  had  flashed:  "You  know 
you  kissed  her  that  day  down  by  the  waters — kissed  her  twice 
full  on  the  lips.  I  saw  you.  Deny  that!" 

He  stood  silent,  amazed,  not  at  the  accusation  but  at  the 
feeling  behind.  Hitherto,  this  queer  girl  had  always  treated 
him  as  of  no  account — treated  him  with  contempt. 

"You  can't"  she  said  triumphantly,  flinging  her  hair  back 
from  her  face  as  though  to  see  more  clearly.  "You  did  kiss 
her."  And  now  her  wrap  had  fallen  from  her  shoulders  to 
the  golden  sands,  unheeded,  to  show  the  beautiful  neck  with 


278  GODS 

the  two  round  breasts  underneath  the  silken  stuff  of  her  dress. 
"Nor  can  you  deny  that  you  tried  to  sell  Black  Rock  to 
Crux,  as  you  have  already  sold  yourself  and  your  country  to 
Thrum.  I  have  read  your  articles.  Ireland  has  read  them." 

A  cry  came  to  them  out  from  the  sea.  It  had  seemed  to 
come  from  the  heart  of  the  waters — a  great  hollow  cry  it  was. 
And  then  stillness.  They  had  both  heard  it — but  their  pas- 
sion had  held  them  indifferent  to  everything  around  them. 

"Now,  you  have  your  gratified  ambition,"  she  went  on. 
"You  have  your  rewards.  You  have  had  your  thirty  pieces 
of  silver — or  is  it  gold?"  she  added  mockingly.  "But  the  girl 
out  there — "  and  she  swept  one  long  rounded  arm  out  over  the 
waters —  "she  bought  you  more  cheaply.  .  .  .  She  bought 
you  with  a  kiss — soul  and  body."  She  had  added  the  last 
word  almost  under  her  breath  and  had  come  close  to  him, 
breathing  fiercely,  her  whole  being  quivering.  It  was  as 
though  anger  and  hatred  had  taken  her  out  of  herself. 

And  he,  who,  hearing  her  last  accusation,  so  untrue — but 
only  untrue  because  the  girl  who  was  speaking  had  saved 
him  from  himself — he  who  realised  that  this  girl  knew  nothing 
of  his  article  in  "The  Earth"  and  of  his  poverty — he  flamed 
against  her.  He  did  not  know  whether  he  hated  her  or  loved 
her.  Afterwards  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  lifted  his 
great  arm  to  strike  her  down.  It  had  been  lifted  there  under 
the  stars,  the  fist  clenched,  whilst  she  stood  underneath  its 
shadow,  dauntless,  the  litle  red  lips  parted  over  the  gleam- 
ing teeth,  the  eyes  without  fear. 

It  was  in  that  white-hotted  moment  of  passion,  pregnant 
with  love  and  death,  that  moment  when  the  burning  eyes  of 
the  girl,  falling  a  moment,  searched  the  waters  beyond  him, 
that  the  low  curl  of  a  long  roller,  sheening  in  the  starshine 
as  it  broke  towards  them  in  low  thunder  the  length  of  the 
shore,  drew  them  both — for  him  to  see  her  staring  at  some- 
thing behind  him.  He  had  turned  to  see  the  sheen  of  the 
dark  surge  under  the  starlight  with  the  copper  strands  of  a 
woman's  hair  caught  up  in  the  waters  and  the  outline  of  a 
naked  form.  And  then  the  great  wave  had  broken  past  them 
to  cast  there  at  their  feet  under  the  shadow  of  Carrickmore 
the  body  of  Stella  Fay. 

The  uplifted  arm  had  fallen — but  about  that  other,  who 


OUT  OF  THE  GREEN  WATERS       279 

had  looked  into  his  eyes  and  fallen  forward  to  the  arms  that 
were  waiting. 

They  stood  there  on  the  hot  sands — stood  there  in  each 
other's  arms  under  the  dewy  stars  with  only  the  beating  of 
their  hearts  and  the  splash  of  the  sea  in  their  ears. 


XXVIII 

THE  WAKE 

The  August  moon,  heavy  with  labour,  travailed  low  in  the 
western  sky.  A  great  sea  gannet  lolloped  heavily  across  the 
surface  of  the  planet,  whose  golden  shadows  irradiated  the  sea 
with  a  light  neither  of  earth  nor  heaven. 

The  sea  scarcely  breathed  under  its  spangled  pall.  The  ex- 
panse of  waters  was  deserted  save  for  a  hooker  that 
swung  nakedly  on  the  swell,  its  cordage  crying  out  there  in 
the  half  lights  like  a  thing  in  pain.  The  little  village  strag- 
gled darkly  in  the  shadows.  The  lightless  windows  of  the 
cabins  were  socketless  eyes  that  wept  for  what  had  been. 

Only  one  spot  beaconed  out  in  that  place  of  death — the 
house  beyond  the  valley,  which  could  be  seen  by  the  way- 
farer gleaming  softly  in  the  darkness  as  though  it  were  raised 
on  a  high  altar  beneath  the  dome  of  the  night  skies. 

One  room  alone  was  suffused  with  light — the  room  where 
the  flame  of  the  waxen  candles  stirred,  sluggish,  in  the  heavy 
airs.  In  one  corner,  under  the  blue  of  an  arching  canopy 
spangled  with  golden  stars,  Stella  Fay  lay  like  a  bride,  her 
hair  of  burnished  copper  strewing  the  bed  in  great  waves  that 
flowed  over  the  lace  of  the  pillow  and  down  to  the  floor.  A 
bride  of  death,  clad  in  blue  silk  and  lace  drawn  closely  over 
the  childish  bosoms  that  showed  themselves  faint  in  that 
ghostly  light,  Stella  Fay  lay  there,  and  as  Finn  and  Deirdre 
standing  there  alone  hand  in  hand,  thought,  looking  at  them, 
not  unkindly  but  searchingly,  through  the  dark  circles  of  the 
eyes. 

On  her  bosom,  just  under  the  slim  white  throat,  lay  a  cross 
of  ebony,  about  which  the  slender  hands  entwined  themselves. 
In  that  rosy  waxen  light,  the  face  was  not  pale,  but  flushed 
faintly. 

The  eyes  were  not  those  of  a  dead  woman.  She  lay  there 

280 


THE  WAKE  281 

as  though  the  spirit  were  not  far  away,  and  as  though,  having 
done  her  work,  she  was  secure  and  satisfied. 

She  had  died  in  the  bosom  of  Holy  Church,  for,  as  they 
had  discovered  from  Father  Con,  Stella  Fay  had  come  to  him 
one  evening  after  vespers  and,  weary  of  earth,  had  flung 
herself  upon  the  broad  breast  of  the  Church. 

There  came  from  the  outside  of  the  house  a  long  hollow 
cry.  Their  hands  gripped,  in  sudden  fear — it  was  like  the 
cry  that  had  come  to  them  that  evening  out  there  from  the 
dark  waters.  It  hung  for  a  moment  in  the  sluggish  airs  of 
night,  wound  about  the  house,  and  then  came  full  as  though 
it  had  been  thrown  into  the  room  itself — circled  a  moment, 
passed,  and  died  away  into  the  heart  of  the  pregnant  stillness. 

They  heard  it  rise  again,  and  with  it  another  that  lifted 
itself  underneath,  at  last  to  blend — and  so  the  others,  until 
the  whole  house  was  filled  with  the  ullagoane  of  the  keeners — 
the  old  women  who  had  known  and  loved  the  girl  that  lay 
there,  listening. 

And  now  words  were  forming  themselves  to  stray  through 
the  rising  volume  of  sound  that  echoed  itself  about  the  house. 

"Oh!  ochone!  ochone!  Sure  it  was  she  that  had  eyes  like 
the  heart  of  the  grey  waters — the  red  of  her  lips  was  like 
the  hawthorn  berries  in  the  autumn  days — her  step  was 
thistledown  on  the  wind.  .  .  ." 

The  voices  of  the  old  women  came  gustfully  in  the  Irish. 

Deirdre  and  Finn  stood  there  staring  at  the  girl  on  the 
bed — the  girl  who  seemed  to  smile  to  them  as  though  in 
secret.  Had  she  risen  and  spoken  to  them  they  would  not 
have  been  surprised.  In  the  magic  of  the  night  all  things 
were  possible.  It  seemed  to  them  a  night  when  the  two  worlds 
had  drawn  very  near  and  the  spirits  of  God  were  abroad. 

"Who  was  it  that  tuk  little  Paudeen  out  of  the  heart  of 
the  green  waters?"  wailed  the  voice  of  the  leader — that  voice 
which  seemed  to  run  through  and  sustain  all  the  others. 

And  then  the  others  in  answer: 

"Sure  it  was  she  that  lies  there  in  the  arms  of  death  this 
night." 

The  single  voice  came  again: 

"Sure  the  look  on  her  face  was  the  look  on  the  face  of  an 
angel  of  light.  It  was  she  that  had  the  gracious  presence 
and  that  the  children  loved.  The  perfume  of  her  presence  was 


282  GODS 

like  the  rose  of  summer  and  the  smile  on  her  face  was  like 
the  dawn  on  Slievebloom. 

"She  came  to  us  out  of  the  great  waters — and  it  was  the 
great  waters  that  tuk  her. 

"When  she  would  be  lukin'  at  you  she  would  not  be  lukin' 
at  all  for  the  breath  of  this  world  was  not  in  her — it  was  she 
that  was  an  angel  of  God. 

"Oh,  sure  'twas  she  that  was  good  to  Black  Rock  and  that 
made  her  nest  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

"Oh  Mary,  mother  of  God,  friend  of  virgins  and  of  loving 
hearts — have  mercy  upon  her  and  intercede  for  her.  May  her 
soul  rest  in  glory!" 

"Oh  Mary,  mother  of  God,  pray  for  her!"  came  in  wailing 
chorus. 

"Oh  mystical  rose!  Tower  of  ivory!  Heart  of  Gold!  Star 
of  the  Morning!"  came  the  voice  of  the  leader.  And  then  the 
reply: 

"Pray  for  her!" 

"Oh,  holy  St.  Joseph,  chaste  guardian  of  the  Virgin!  Guar- 
dian of  Virgins!  Terror  of  demons!" 

"Pray  for  her!" 

The  voices  came  and  went  in  the  Litany  of  Death.  Finn 
looking  above  the  dead  girl  could  almost  see  the  Roman  gods, 
in  halos  and  coloured  robes — that  galaxy  of  saints  and  angels 
set  golden  in  the  tenuous  blue  of  the  starry  firmament. 

And  the  girl  on  the  bed  smiled  to  them,  friendly,  with  that 
secret  smile. 

And  out  from  a  corner  of  the  room  where  Mrs.  O'Hara  had 
stolen,  there  came  her  voice  as  she  prayed  and  blessed  her- 
self: "Holy  Mary,  Mother  of  God,  be  with  us  now  and  in 
the  hour  of  our  death.  Amen." 

Finn,  for  the  third  time  in  his  life,  wanted  to  throw  him- 
self down  there  by  the  side  of  the  girl  on  the  bed  and  to 
pray  for  her  and  for  all  the  world.  It  was  the  feeling  that 
had  come  to  him  that  day  in  the  Tabernacle  and  afterwards 
in  the  Westminster  Cathedral.  But  it  was  the  same  impulse 
which,  without  his  realising  it  at  the  time,  had  been  behind 
so  many  of  the  determinative  acts  of  his  life,  as  that  day  when 
he  had  gone  from  the  Peace  Conference  to  write  the  article 
which  was  to  sever  him  from  Thrum  and  from  success — that 
article  which  in  its  way  was  a  prayer. 


THE  WAKE  283 

In  that  moment,  there  was  neither  Protestant  nor  Catholic 
— Jew,  atheist,  nor  Universalist — all  were  one.  It  was  that 
feeling  of  oneness  that  came  over  him  in  his  times  of  the 
greater  emotions — the  feeling  that  made  all  faiths  the  same — 
all  faiths  wonderful  and  all  faiths  indifferent. 

And  now  he  turned  from  those  eyes  of  the  dead  to  feel 
the  eyes  of  the  living.  For  Deirdre,  still  holding  his  hand, 
as  a  child  holds  its  father's,  was  looking  into  his  face,  and  then 
she  had  come  close  to  him  and  sunk  her  head  as  though  to 
hide  it  within  his  breast  and  had  whispered:  "Take  me  out, 
Finn  dear.  I  cannot  bear  more." 

They  had  gone  out  into  the  dusk  of  the  August  night  and 
had  wandered  across  the  mossy  cobbles  and  down  the  boreen 
now  dark  with  its  massy  foliage.  And  so  they  had  wandered 
into  the  valley  and  along  by  the  stream  where  he  had  walked 
that  night  with  the  dead  girl  who  lay  up  there.  Not  to  be 
ashamed — but  to  think  of  that  and  of  all. 

The  lush  grass  rose  high  about  them  and  the  night  was 
heavy  with  thoughts  unspoken.  He  could  feel  the  girl  under  the 
lee  of  his  shoulder  clinging  closely  to  him  with  both  her 
slender  hands,  pressing  his  elbow  tightly  to  her  side.  Not  a 
sound  came  from  the  thicket  beside  them — they  were  there 
deserted  save  for  the  ullag&ane  that  rose  and  fell  in  the  airless 
night.  Above  them,  gleaming  softly  in  the  darkness,  the  light- 
house of  the  House  of  Dreams  stood  sentinel. 

All  at  once,  the  little  hands  had  broken  loose  from  him 
and  the  girl  had  come  round  to  face  him,  barring  his  way, 
her  arms  hanging  loosely  at  her  sides. 

"Love  me,  Finn,"  she  said,  her  breath  coming  and  going  hot 
on  his  face.  "Love  me.  You  must  love  me — now"  And 
then:  "I  am  not  dead,  but  living."  There  was  fierceness  in 
the  voice.  And  then  she  had  whispered  as  though  she  were 
unconscious  of  what  she  said: 

"Love  and  Death  are  the  same  thing." 

He  looked  at  her  wonderingly,  and  something  stirred  deep 
within  him  as  something  that  is  wakened  from  sleep. 

"You  must  love  me  now — now." 

She  had  drawn  herself  closer  to  place  an  arm  about  the 
neck  so  high  above  her — the  other  sinking  at  her  side. 

Above  them  the  keen  came  and  went  on  the  fluttering  night 
wind  that  had  risen.  It  seemed  to  them  as  though  the  dead 


284  GODS 

girl  up  there  were  crying — crying  for  the  things  that  had 
been,  that  might  have  been.  But  they  left  that  thought  un- 
spoken. 

The  scent  of  the  grasses  came  heavily  to  his  nostrils.  The 
girl  was  close  fo  him — this  girl  once  so  cold,  so  unapproachable 
— and  as  his  arms  stole  about  her  waist  and  he  felt  the  cool- 
ness of  her  body  in  the  hot  night,  she  hung  resistless. 

And  now  both  arms  had  closed  about  her  as  she  hung  there, 
to  draw  her  into  him.  The  little  red  lips  were  parted  to  show 
the  gleam  of  the  tiny  teeth  behind.  The  veil  of  hair  had  fallen 
over  her  face,  over  the  hanging  head  as  though  to  hide  her 
shame,  the  shame  of  her  hot  love  under  the  August  night. 

From  above  them  came  the  sound  of  the  keen — that  swelled 
once  more  out  of  the  darkness  and  then  died  away  into  the 
silence. 


XXIX 

IN  THE  SHADOW  OF   THE  OLD  CHAPEL 

For  four  days  and  four  nights  they  waked  Stella  Fay.  She 
lay  there  in  waxen  beauty  under  the  corpse-candles,  smiling  to 
those  who  entered.  And  there  were  many  who  entered,  for  all 
the  country  around  loved  the  girl  who  had  had  the  strange 
queer  spirit  in  her  that  was  the  spirit  of  Black  Rock. 

And  they  took  her  down  through  the  valley  that  led  from 
the  House  of  Dreams — took  her  down  in  the  long  black  coffin 
with  the  silver  handles,  where  she  rested  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
four  giants  of  the  sea  like  a  queen  on  her  bed.  And  so  up 
to  the  old  chapel  that  on  this  afternoon  of  setting  sun  seemed 
to  smile  bounteously  to  the  daughter  that  had  come  to  it  in 
the  long  last,  whilst  the  choir,  which  had  come  to  meet  her, 
sang  "The  Song  of  Death." 

And  there  before  the  tapestried  lighted  altar  she  lay,  trestled 
high  above  the  people  who  loved  her  and  who  knelt  about  her 
to  pray  for  the  unquiet  soul.  She  lay  there,  raised  over  them 
like  a  queen  of  heaven,  with  the  tapers  in  the  lofty  candle- 
sticks burning  steadily  in  the  incensed  air,  three  on  each  side. 
And  there,  Father  Con,  a  priest  of  God,  helped  by  Father 
Hennessey,  who  took  a  new  nobility  from  his  office  under  the 
high  lights,  celebrated  the  Requiem  High  Mass — that  mass  of 
the  dead  hallowed  by  the  centuries,  with  its  cadences  of  haunt- 
ing beauty;  its  prayers;  and  its  silences. 

"Recordare  Jesu  pie  .  .  .  perdas  ilia  die"  shivered 
through  the  old  building,  finding  its  echo  in  the  hearts  of  all 
there.  And  then  the  figures  of  the  choristers,  each  with  a 
lighted  taper  in  his  hand,  standing  within  the  Sanctuary  before 
the  coffin  as  beings  from  another  world  to  light  the  dead  girl  on 
her  way;  all  to  end  in  the  triumph  of  the  Consecration  of  the 
Host  and  the  Church's  blessing  and  assurance — final,  absolute. 

Finn  and  Deirdre,  behind  the  others,  could  see  her  staring 

285 


286  GODS 

upwards  through  the  darkness  of  her  coffin,  listening  to  the 
Latin  words  and  smiling  to  herself  with  that  secret  smile  they 
had  seen  down  there  in  the  House  of  Dreams. 

And  behind,  Paris  Asthar,  with  his  crutches,  dragged  his 
legs  about  the  stone  pavement — the  dark  eyes  looking  mourn- 
fully out  from  their  sockets,  with  Togo,  a  yellow  shadow, 
haunting  him  in  the  rear.  For  he  had  been  fond  of  Stella  Fay 
— had  loved  her  as  a  good  comrade.  And  with  her  passing, 
something,  final,  had  seemed  to  break  in  him.  He  was  crum- 
bling, resistlessly,  to  ruin. 

It  was  here  that  Finn,  who  had  missed  Deirdre,  found  her  to 
his  astonishment,  praying,  or  trying  to  pray,  in  a  remote  cor- 
ner of  the  chapel.  "Oh,  God!  give  me  faith,"  he  heard  her 
pray  as  he  stood  behind.  Ancl  then,  the  broken:  "But  I  can't 
.  .  .  my  God  does  not  live  in  temples." 

And  he  had  put  his  arm  about  the  slender  neck  where  the 
sun-freckles  dappled  themselves  on  the  white  skin. 

And  so  they  laid  Stella  Fay  to  rest.  In  the  shadow  of 
the  old  chapel,  where  the  winds  of  ocean  haunted  the  graves. 
But  it  was  Deirdre  who  said: 

"Finn,  she  is  not  dead.  You  cannot  kill  things  like  Stella 
Fay.  She  is  living  and  listening."  And  then  she  had  shud- 
dered a  little  and  had  flung  herself,  impetuous,  into  Finn's 
arms.  And  then,  almost  in  a  whisper,  as  though  it  were  forced 
out  of  her:  "I  hate  her,  Finn  ...  I  hate  her  .  .  . 
and  fear  her.  May  God  forgive  me!" 

It  was  Deirdre's  Asthar's  first  prayer  since  she  was  a  little 
child. 

It  was  one  of  his  recurring  astonishments.  This  girl  who 
had  held  herself  in  frozen  aloofness  from  him  through  the 
years  was  now  almost  pathetic  in  her  surrender.  To  others, 
as  reserved  as  ever,  she  seemed  filled  with  the  desire  to  sacrifice 
herself  to  her  lover.  She  would  be  walking  with  him  alone  and 
would  all  at  once  wind  her  arms  about  him  and  drag  down  his 
head  to  kiss  him  passionately  on  the  lips.  She  would  forget 
her  shyness  and  press  her  body  against  him  as  though  she  de- 
sired to  absorb  him.  And  Finn,  touched  inexpressibly  by  her 
surrender,  forbore  to  take  advantage  of  it — cherishing  her  as 
fine  gold  and  wearing  her  as  a  lover  should. 

Paris  Asthar  accepted  it  all  with  his  whimsical  philosophy, 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  OLD  CHAPEL      287 

smiling  at  them  as  a  very  old  man  might  smile  at  playing  chil- 
dren. Only  once  he  had  said  to  his  half-sister: 

"Deirdre,  you  and  I  once  played  for  a  stake — the  soul  of  a 
man — only  that  you  did  not  know  it — and  you  won.  But  you 
are  the  only  being  that  has  ever  taken  from  me  the  thing  that 
I  desired — but  love  is  stronger  than  desire — love  is  the  strong- 
est thing  in  the  world.  Only  it  cost  the  life  of  a  girl,  and  per- 
haps it  is  going  to  cost  the  life  of  a  man." 

And  that  was  the  only  time  he  spoke  of  the  girl  lying  up 
there  in  the  shadow  of  the  chapel.  Nor  were  Finn  and  Deirdre 
ever  to  know  the  secret  of  the  cry  from  the  sea — whether  it 
was  the  waters  that  took  Stella  Fay  or  whether  she  died  for 
the  sake  of  love. 

But  from  the  day  they  laid  Stella  Fay  up  there,  Paris  As- 
thar  seemed  to  fall  headlong  into  dissolution.  It  was  as 
though  a  living  man  were  dissolving  before  them  into  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  grave.  There  was  something  awesome  in  his 
fight  to  live.  The  olive  glow  of  the  years  that  were  gone  had 
faded  from  the  face,  and  it  was  now  like  shrivelled  parchment, 
for  each  day  the  life-blood  seemed  to  ebb,  leaving  the  extremi- 
ties to  wither.  The  ears  in  particular  had  something  apish 
in  them,  and  the  dark  locks  were  now  streaked  with  grey. 

He  battled  against  his  invisible  antagonist  moment  by  mo- 
ment, sinking  lower  each  day  with  burning  eyes,  for  all  his 
vitality  as  it  receded  from  his  members  seemed  to  pass  into 
those  eyes.  But  in  his  decay  there  was  something  statuesque. 

And  so  Paris  Asthar  fought  with  death  .  .  and  then,  near 
the  extremity  of  dissolution,  prayed  for  death.  But  death 
would  not  come  at  will.  Paris  Asthar  could  not  die.  Had  he 
not  said  he  was  immortal? 

Until  that  evening  of  late  September  when  Deirdre,  forcing 
herself  to  the  task,  went  in  to  busy  herself  about  the  couch 
where  he  lay — he  would  not  go  to  bed — and  found  him  propped 
up  in  his  silken  gown  looking  out  through  her,  a  strange  fierce 
smile  on  the  broken  face,  a  smile  of  conviction  triumphant: 

"The  Gods  live!"  he  had  whispered,  not  to  her,  but  as 
though  to  himself. 

And  then: 

"I  am  here,"  he  said,  looking  out  and  a  little  up  before  him, 
smiling.  The  broken  head  had  fallen  forward.  Paris  Asthar 
— Immortal. 


288  GODS 

Five  days  afterwards  they  laid  him  up  there  by  the  side 
of  Stella  Fay,  but  she,  as  became  a  daughter  of  the  church,  in 
consecrated,  he,  in  unconsecrated  ground,  beneath  the  shadow 
of  the  chapel  that  gathered  them  all  in. 


XXX 


It  was  one  night  of  early  September,  under  a  golden  harvest 
moon  that  Deirdre  had  told  Finn,  shyly,  that  she  had  loved 
him  from  the  moment  when  he  had  kissed  Stella  Fay  down 
by  the  waters  after  she  had  taken  Paudeen  from  them.  "I 
don't  know,  why,  Finn,  dear,"  she  had  said.  "But  that  was 
the  first  time  I  realised  it  ...  I  think — I  think—  •"  she 
had  added  a  moment  after,  "I  always  loved  you,  but  I  would 
not  let  myself  believe  it.  I  did  not  know  whether  I  loved  or 
hated  you.  But  it  was  that  day  by  the  green  waters  I  first 
knew  that,  whether  for  good  or  ill,  I  loved  you  and  for  al- 
ways." 

Deirdre  had  written  to  her  father,  Old  Asthar,  to  tell  him 
of  her  engagement,  when  he  very  promptly  and  brutally  told 
her  "to  lie  on  the  bed  which  she  had  made  and  that  he  didn't 
care  if  he  never  saw  her  face  again."  Old  Asthar  never  did 
things  by  halves.  He  was  as  thorough  as  his  daughter. 

But  Deirdre  in  one  of  those  queer  moments  of  hers  had 
made  Finn  promise  solemnly  that  they  should  never  again 
be  separated;  that  wherever  he  went  she  should  go — and  he 
had  promised — and  then  she  had  forgotten  her  father  and  the 
whole  of  a  world  which  had  never  been  hers.  And  indeed  her 
father  had  neither  forgotten  nor  forgiven  the  affair  of  the 
path,  and  the  Dunhallow  demonstration,  and  the  part  that 
Deirdre  had  played. 

Finn  had  to  return  to  London  to  write  his  articles  after 
speaking  with  Lanthorn,  who  wanted  to  see  him.  For  Deirdre 
and  himself  he  took,  to  that  young  lady's  astonished  disgust 
at  his  care  for  the  proprieties,  rooms  in  separate  houses  in 
the  same  Hammersmith  road,  flinging  her  so  to  speak  on  to  the 
friendly  bosom  of  his  landlady,  a  Mrs.  Witherton,  a  dessicated 
little  woman  with  a  big  heart,  who,  Cockney  that  she  was,  had 
not  been  out  of  Hammersmith  for  twenty  years  and  had  never 

289 


290  GODS 

seen  St.  Paul's  or  the  House  of  Commons.  "Nor  don't  want 
to,"  she  had  said  when  she  told  this  to  Finn,  pridefully.  "The 
Old  Mall  Road's  good  enough  for  me." 

Mrs.  Witherton  was  the  lady  to  whom  he  had  gone,  through 
a  chance  recommendation,,  upon  his  return,  as  he  felt  that, 
with  Deirdre,  Ash  Villa  and  the  Forestford  road  had  reached 
for  him  their  limits  of  toleration.  Since  what  his  mother  had 
called  "that  disgusting  exhibition"  in  "The  Earth,"  which  had 
led  to  his  fall  from  grace,  Ash  Villa  had  been  nearly  intoler- 
able. 

Deirdre,  as  always  dignified  and  self-possessed,  had  written 
an  impersonal  note  to  her  father,  saying  that  she  would  send 
for  her  things  on  a  certain  day,  when  Old  Asthar,  now  thor- 
oughly roused,  had  sent  everything  in  two  four-wheeled  cabs 
— he  would  never  use  anything  more  modern.  And  so  Deirdre 
was  installed  in  the  tiny  Hammersmith  room,  her  more  inti- 
mate possessions  of  silver  and  tortoise  shell,  with  lingerie  fit 
for  a  princess,  filling  her  landlady  with  an  ecstasy  but  imper- 
fectly suppressed.  Her  lute  hung  on  the  wall. 

There  was  something  that  touched  Finn  in  the  way  that 
Deirdre  deliberately,  so  to  speak,  took  her  new  life  by  the 
tnroat.  She  made  out  a  list  of  her  resources  and  calculated 
that  she  would  not  want  any  new  clothes  for  many  years. 
"She  did  not  want  to  be  a  handicap,"  she  said.  But  in  her 
dress  and  person  she  was  as  dainty  as  ever. 

Finally,  after  much  searching,  Finn  found  a  box-like  flat 
with  a  green  door  by  the  side  of  the  river,  for  which  he  con- 
tracted to  pay  the  landlord,  a  most  uncalculating  baker  of  tha 
Plymouth  Brethren  persuasion,  the  sum  of  eight  shillings  and 
sixpence  per  week.  They  would  have  a  Lilliputian  kitchen,  a 
box  room  into  which  one  might  or  might  not  be  able  to  get  a 
hip  bath,  a  tiny  sitting  room  and  a  bedroom,  to  hold  one. 

The  mathematics  of  householding  staggered  them.  The 
problem  seemed  simple  enough:  how  to  furnish  an  eight  and 
sixpenny  flat  upon  nothing  at  all  save  good  will,  some  forty 
pounds  sterling  which  Deirdre,  luckily,  had  standing  to  her 
private  account,  and  a  precarious  free-lance  journalism.  Ne- 
cessity developed  for  them  all  sorts  of  ingenious  "contrap- 
tions," as  the  word  went  in  Black  Rock,  for  getting  over  the 
irreducible  minimum. 

An  oak  divan  in  the  sitting  room  could  be  used  at  night  by 


"IN  SICKNESS  AND  HEALTH  ..."  291 

Finn  as  a  bed.  The  lighting  problem  was  solved  by  a  single 
burner  with  an  incandescent  mantle  over  the  solitary  table, 
which  could  be  used  for  working  at  or  eating  off.  Wardrobes 
were  avoided  by  one  shelf-wardrobe  forgotten  by  a  previous 
tenant,  who  had  left  in  a  hurry,  and  by  a  cunningly  arranged 
hanging  curtain  on  rings.  Carpets  were  a  luxury  and  could  be 
dispensed  with  in  the  early  days  by  staining  the  floors  and 
using  some  mats — alleged  Chinese. 

It  was  not  until  all  this  had  been  settled  that  Deirdre  re- 
membered the  question  of  marriage,  as  Finn  one  day  discov- 
ered. He  had  been  giving  some  anxious  hours  each  day  to  the 
point. 

Should  it  be  in  a  church?  Or  should  it  be  at  a  registrar's? 
Neither  Deirdre  nor  he  were  members  of  any  church,  but  if 
they  were  not  married  in  a  church  they  would  be  "living  in 
sin,"  whatever  that  might  mean,  according  to  Mrs.  Fontaine, 
who  expounded  her  convictions  without  ambiguity.  In  an 
evil  moment,  Finn  had  told  his  mother  that  they  were  going 
"to  marry  each  other,"  when  she  had  gravely  corrected:  "You 
mean,  you  are  going  to  marry  her,  Finn.  A  man  must  be 
head  in  his  own  house."  Mrs.  Fontaine,  who  was  really  femi- 
nism incarnate,  was  in  theory  a  staunch  upholder  of  the  male 
principle. 

Jemmy  had  twiddled  his  thumbs,  as,  when  perplexed,  was 
the  way  with  him.  Aunt  Maria  wilted.  But  Aunt  Bella,  now 
a  malignant  paralytic,  clamped  to  her  bed,  cursed  them  in  no 
uncertain  voice. 

"May  God  strike  you  down  and  your  children!"  she  had 
said  to  Finn.  "May  He  in  His  divine  mercy,  send  down  His 
curse  upon  you  and  your  children's  children."  Having  done 
her  duty  she  had  turned  herself  to  the  wall. 

And  so  Finn  had  gone  away  heavy  at  heart.  There  was 
nothing  to  be  done  with  such  a  woman. 

Finally,  Deirdre  and  Finn  decided  that  the  extreme  limit 
of  their  concession  to  civilisation  would  be  marriage  at  a  regis- 
trar's, and  very  shame-faced,  as  though  he  were  committing  a 
crime,  Finn  went  round  to  make  enquiries  in  the  Goldhawk 
road  from  a  gentleman  who  gave  him  full  verbal  and  fuller 
printed  information. 

It  was  really  a  matter  which  concerned  nobody  but  their 
two  selves,  but  upon  Finn's  mother  threatening  to  die  on  the 


292  GODS 

spot  if  uninvited  and,  more  shadowy,  to  haunt  them  afterwards, 
it  was  decided  to  invite  Jemmy  and  his  very  much  better  half. 
So,  one  fine  morning  at  the  end  of  September,  at  a  quarter 
to  twelve  of  the  clock,  Finn  and  Deirdre  stood  in  Mrs.  Wither- 
ton's  hall,  awaiting  his  progenitors.  He  was  dressed  in  his 
only  presentable  lounge  suit — an  Irish  stuff  of  greys  and  greens, 
and  very  well  indeed  he  looked  with  a  frame  that  seemed  to 
fill  the  hall,  and  very  beautiful  and  noble  looked  Deirdre, 
who  had  taken  the  whimsey  to  wear  a  cloak  of  Limerick  lace 
with  the  shamrock  of  Ireland  in  Connemara  marble  dauntless 
upon  her  breast.  She  looked  almost  a  child. 

And  here  they  were  when  Jemmy  and  his  wife  appeared  at 
the  gate;  he,  got  up  to  the  very  limit  of  respectability  and  a 
trifle  over,  with  his  top-hat  slightly  over  his  ears,  but  fresh 
polished,  a  frock-coat  that  might  have  looked  worse  than  it 
did,  a  pair  of  black  cotton  gloves,  and  trousers  of  which, 
with  his  last  pair  of  cheap  boots  liberally  slashed,  the  less  said 
the  better.  And  the  inevitable  umbrella. 

He  looked  to  Finn  like  a  man  who  was  near  the  end  of 
the  road,  and  his  son's  heart  went  out  to  him  in  affectionate 
compassion. 

But  Mrs.  Fontaine  put  the  day  to  shame.  She  might  her- 
self have  been  the  bride,  clothed  in  white  from  head  to  foot, 
with  white  kid  button  boots  and  a  perfect  breastwork  of  glassy 
jewellery. 

Introduced  to  Deirdre,  who  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  lost 
something  of  her  possession,  she  gave  her  a  perfunctory  peck 
upon  the  forehead,  for  the  young  girl  at  the  last  moment  had 
bent  her  head  down  as  though  she  were  going  to  butt  her 
mother-in-law,  who  looked  with  a  certain  cold  disapproval  upon 
the  flash  of  green  at  Deirdre's  breast. 

"You  should  have  had  orange  blossoms,  my  dear,"  she  said 
in  a  voice  of  oil  and  vinegar. 

"But  it  is  the  symbol  of  your  own  Trinity,  given  to  the  Irish, 
to  my  people" — she  said  it  proudly — "by  St.  Patrick.  I  am 
a  better  Christian  than  you,  Mrs.  Fontaine."  It  was  an  omi- 
nous beginning. 

But  to  Jemmy  she  was  cordial,  kissing  his  poor  shrunken  face 
with  her  red  young  lips  and  smiling  on  him. 

Finn's  mother  was  adamant.     "The  Irish  are  pagans,"  she 


"IN  SICKNESS  AND  HEALTH  ..."  293 

said,  "and  I  do  not  doubt  that  Patrick  himself  was  a  pagan 
person,  too." 

The  cab  was  before  the  door,  and  so  they  were  driven  by 
easy  stages  and  a  knock-kneed  horse,  in  Mrs.  Fontaine's  words, 
guided  by  "an  antiquated  horror  of  a  cabman,"  who  indeed 
had  a  gargantuan  nose  like  a  pantomime  mask,  to  the  regis- 
trar's in  the  Hammersmith  Road,  where  they  had  to  wait  their 
turn  on  a  long  lean  bench  whilst  a  coster  was  being,  as  he 
said,  "spliced"  to  the  lady  of  his  choice,  who  really  had  come 
out  most  alarmingly  for  the  occasion,  quite  throwing  Mrs. 
Fontaine  into  the  shade. 

The  Fontaine  sniff  was  much  in  evidence  in  what  Finn's 
mother  termed  "these  unholy  precincts."  Mrs.  Fontaine  looked 
and  felt  that  it  was  all  most  irregular — that  damning  word 
which  she  used  for  all  things  with  which  she  did  not  agree. 
And  so,  after  a  quite  friendly  old  gentleman  had  said  something 
over  them  both  and  had  asked  Finn  to  place  an  inconsequen- 
tial ring  upon  the  third  finger  of  Deirdre's  left  hand,  and  after 
the  aforesaid  old  gentleman  had  made  a  vague  and  professional 
effort  to  pretend  that  he  was  not  doing  this  sort  of  thing  all 
his  life,  had  been  doing  it  five  minutes  before  with  the  coster 
gentleman,  and  would  be  doing  it  five  minutes  after,  they  all 
went  out.  But  Finn  noticed  that  Deirdre,  proud  little  aristo- 
crat, bowed  only  to  the  outstretched  hand  of  the  old  gentle- 
man when  he  offered  his  congratulations,  which  was  a  shame. 

As  they  were  leaving  the  building,  Mrs.  Fontaine  whispered 
to  Mr.  Fontaine: 

"I  do  hope,  Jemmy,  it's  legal." 


XXXI 

JEMMY  FONTAINE  DIES  IN  HARNESS 

On  the  evening  of  his  wedding  day,  Finn  got  a  telegram  from 
his  mother,  for  once  surprised  into  the  statement  direct.  It 
contained  only  three  words:  "Come  at  once." 

Two  hours  later,  in  the  cool  of  what  for  September  had 
been  a  very  hot  day,  Finn  was  knocking  at  the  door  of  Ash 
Villa,  scenting  the  blooms  of  the  Marechal  Niel  over  his  head, 
still  in  full  glory  and  murmurous  with  the  laden  bees  of  eve- 
ning. Ever  after,  the  scent  of  roses  blended  in  his  memory 
with  the  scent  of  death. 

His  mother,  bewildered  and  a  trifle  blown  as  though  she 
had  been  running,  all  her  self-possession  gone,  met  him  in 
the  hall  to  point  in  silent  confusion  to  the  door  of  the  little 
drawing-room  where  that  June  morning  of  eleven  years  be- 
fore Finn  had  first  asked  his  question:  "Who  was  God?  Was 
he?"  Once  again  through  the  lowered  blinds,  he  caught  the 
scent  of  the  roses  and  there  came  to  him  the  soft  murmur  of 
the  blooms  laden  with  their  clambering  bees,  the  velvety  backs, 
red  and  black  and  yellow,  standing  softly  against  the  ivory  of 
the  flowers. 

The  murmur  had  mingled  with  another  more  sterterous,  in- 
sistent— the  murmur  that  came  from  the  figure  lying  on  its 
back  under  the  window  upon  the  mattress  stretched  upon  the 
floor. 

Jemmy  Fontaine  was  near  the  end  of  the  road. 

Finn  saw  the  poor  broken  mouth  where  it  opened  itself  in 
the  frame  of  the  scanty  greying  beard  eager  to  suck  in  the 
air  that  was  now  so  precious,  as  through  a  bellows,  but  a  bel- 
lows that  was  broken.  He  saw  the  shrunken  skull  and  the 
shining  yellow  of  the  scalp  and  the  filming  of  the  eyes  that 
never  again  would  look  upon  him  in  bewilderment — caught 
the  chest  that  laboured  beneath  the  frock-coat  and  cheap  black 

294 


JEMMY  FONTAINE  DIES  IN  HARNESS        295 

tie  of  the  wedding  morning,  awry  and  loosened,  in  which 
Jemmy  had  been  carried  in  from  the  hot  street  where  he  had 
fallen  with  his  encyclopaedia — that  terrible  encyclopaedia  which 
was  to  restore  the  fortunes  of  the  Fontaines,  now  irretrievably 
lost  in  the  Happy  Homes  of  England. 

Ginger  had  discovered  this  last  in  some  mysterious  way  of 
her  own,  for  as  Finn  passed  up  to  his  bed  he  could  hear  her  in 
the  little  closet  where  she  slept  with  the  tank  and  an  abbrevi- 
ated wooden  box  which  she  called  a  trunk,  and  where  she  was 
at  that  moment  on  her  knees  praying:  "Gawd  blarst  Buldger! 
Gawd  blarst  Buldger!"  repeated  prayerfully  again  and  again. 
A  light  came  from  under  the  door  of  the  room  of  Strom,  the 
lodger,  the  tap  of  his  mallet  like  the  tap  of  a  hammer  on  a 
coffin. 

All  through  the  night  Jemmy  Fontaine  battled  with  his  in- 
visible enemy,  the  enemy  who  had  so  often  followed  him  in  the 
heat  of  the  long  summer  days,  waiting  to  drag  him  down,  to 
whom  the  encyclopaedia  had  given  his  chance,  at  last.  Through 
the  hours  of  the  September  night,  through  the  little  hours  when 
his  enemy  waxed  stronger,  into  the  heat  of  the  new  day — the 
broken  bellows  did  its  work,  now  crackling  a  little  through  the 
nozzle  of  the  broken  mouth  where  it  fell  a  little  on  one  side. 
And  through  the  whole  of  the  long  day  there  was  a  steady 
thronging  to  see  him  die.  Jemmy  Fontaine  was  assuming  a 
new  importance. 

Amongst  the  first  was  Uncle  Bobs,  who  blew  in  immediately 
after  breakfast,  having,  as  he  pridefully  declared,  "padded  the 
hoof"  from  London.  Uncle  Bobs  steadily  ignored  Death.  For 
him,  dissolution  had  no  existence.  His  mortality  was  of  an 
immortal  texture. 

"Nature,  Sir,  Nature!"  he  declared  to  all  and  sundry  as  he 
went  from  room  to  room,  ignoring  the  fact  that  all  those  to 
whom  he  spoke,  save  Finn,  were  of  the  female  sex.  "Nature, 
Sir,  Nature!  If  he  had  only  lived  on  onions  and  water  and 
slept  under  the  air  of  heaven,"  said  Bobs,  now  sacrificing  to 
his  hygienic  gods,  "we  should  have  him  with  us  now." 

They  did  have  him  with  them,  however,  for  Jemmy  was 
not  dead  yet.  He  could  not  die.  But  the  bellows  was  giving 
out — a  wheeze,  intermittent,  was  adding  itself  to  the  crackle. 

Aunt  Judy  haunted  the  dark  corners,  laying  her  nose  over 
chair  edges  and  looking  with  a  certain  inflamed  curiosity  upon 


296  GODS 

Jemmy  as  though  he  might  solve  the  great  secret.  Sometimes 
she  would  stand  up  to  get  a  better  view,  her  head  rolling  from 
side  to  side  and  sometimes  a-tremble.  But  towards  the  close 
of  the  day  it  was  quite  obvious  that  Aunt  Judy  regarded 
Jemmy  as  finished  in  every  sense.  She  was  now  hopelessly  non- 
believing  and  had  given  up  the  Spirit's  Elect  without,  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life,  finding  another  experiment. 

Every  now  and  then  Uncle  Bobs  would  come  in,  vastly  im- 
portant and,  despite  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion,  enjoying 
himself  hugely,  to  urge  his  final  remedy  for  all  ills — bleeding. 
It  was,  it  seemed,  now  too  late  for  onions. 

"Bleed  him,  Sir,  bleed  him!"  he  said  in  the  voice  of  a 
genial  butcher.  "Cleanse  the  pores  and  vessels  from  the  accre- 
tions of  uric  acid,  Sir.  Meat,  Sir,  meat,  has  been  his  poison." 

And  through  the  house  Ginger  flitted,  a  red-haired  avenger, 
showing  even  for  her,  an  unusual  amount  of  red  flannel  in  her 
distress  and  muttering  her  eternal:  "Gawd  blarst  Buldger!" 

Aunt  Bella,  accompanied  by  Aunt  Maria,  her  eye  squint- 
ing horribly,  lifted  herself  for  the  first  time  in  many  months 
from  her  bed  to  come  in  like  an  insane  raven,  the  Choctaw 
feathers,  black  and  menacing,  sticking  out  from  her  turban, 
to  stand  over  her  unconscious  brother-in-law,  now  fast  pass- 
ing beyond  the  reach  of  the  terrible  denunciations,  disguised  as 
prayers,  which  she  hurled  upon  his  unconscious  head. 

Aunt  Bella  at  least  was  determined  that  there  should  be 
no  question  of  Jemmy's  eternal  destination  and  so  she  cursed 
him  by  bell,  book  and  candle,  the  venomous  mouth  slightly 
slavering  as  she  described  with  an  anatomical  minuteness  which 
reminded  Finn  of  "The  Tortures  of  the  Saints"  he  had  once 
read  at  Dunhallow,  the  fate  that  awaited  him. 

For  the  first  time  and  under  this  terrible  stream,  her  sister 
Fanny  wilted.  This  sudden  striking  down  of  Jemmy  appeared 
quite  to  have  destroyed  that  cool-headedness  that  had  enabled 
Mrs.  Fontaine  through  life  to  triumph  over  her  ad- 
versaries. 

With  a  minuteness  that  was  intolerable,  Aunt  Bella,  giving 
rein  to  her  imagination,  painted  Eternity  for  her  unconscious 
hearer.  She  revelled  in  its  unceasingness.  "If  every  grain  of 
sand  were  a  thousand  years  .  .  ."  and  Finn,  listening, 
waited  for  the  thing  that  was  coming  as  though  he  had  heard 
it  all  before — as  indeed  he  had 


JEMMY  FONTAINE  DIES  IN  HARNESS         297 

And  so,  a  trifle  palsied  and.  still  spitting  and  slavering 
Aunt  Bella  having  done  her  duty  for  the  last  time  went  from 
the  room  back  to  that  bed  to  which  she  was  now  to  be  clamped 
for  the  rest  of  her  life.  She  had  done  her  work. 

Mr.  Titterling,  unmonocled  but  spruce  as  ever  except  for  his 
collar,  which  looked  distinctly  soiled,  came  in  dust  coat  and 
white  bowler,  a  chalk-faced  convert.  For  Trevor  Titterling 
had  been  converted  to  the  Spirit's  Elect  some  weeks  before, 
and  now  was  revelling,  with  difficulty,  in  a  luxurious  sense 
of  security.  It  was  obviously  a  call  de  convenance,  as  he  sat 
there,  his  tail,  metaphorically  speaking,  between  his  legs,  his 
hair  now  thinning  coming  up  into  its  horn  points,  and  the 
rascally  pitying  humour  in  the  pale  eyes.  He  did  his  best, 
poor  fellow,  and,  as  Finn  saw,  was  genuine  enough  in  his  own 
way,  and  he  showed  as  little  of  his  white  gleaming  teeth  as 
possible,  but  it  was  not  easy. 

"Feel  quite  lost  without  my  glass,"  he  said  in  sorrowful  aside 
to  Finn.  "The  wife  and  elder  Tompkins  think  it  immoral. 
Crushing  hard  work,  this  conversion  business,  Finn.  Fairly 
makes  you  sweat.  Feel  like  a  winner  of  the  Grand  National 
before  the  last  fence — don't  know  if  I  can  stand  up  .  .  ." 

"You  see,  I've  fallen  down  so  often,"  he  added  ruefully. 

Father  Lestrange,  a  figure  of  gloom,  passed  through  the 
house  like  a  shadow.  He  was  still  cordial  to  Finn,  but  it 
was  clear  that  he  had  given  him  up — as  far  as  giving  up  was 
possible  to  such  a  man.  And  Finn,  the  old  memories,  com- 
ing back,  felt  old  regrets  and  the  old  friendliness.  But  the 
glamour  was  gone.  For  now  there  was  Deirdre. 

Finn,  sitting  there  in  the  small  hours,  found  himself  listen- 
ing for  something.  And  then  he  found  he  was  listening  to 
silence.  The  bellows  had  finished.  The  grey  eyes  were  star- 
ing upwards,  unseeing.  The  black  tie  and  frock-coat  had 
ceased  to  move. 

Jemmy  Fontaine  had  died  in  harness. 


They  laid  him  up  there  deep  in  the  yellow  clay  under  the 
black  leaf  mould,  beneath  a  great  oak,  in  the  little  church- 
yard on  the  edge  of  the  forest,  in  the  only  land  that  Jemmv 
had  ever  owned,  and  without  a  tombstone.  Only  Finn  and 
Deirdre  followed  the  coffin  and  heard  the  "Ashes  to  ashes 


298  GODS 

.     .     ."  and  then  the  yellow  clay  playing  its  tattoo  upon  the 

black  lid. 

When  they  got  back  Mrs.  Fontaine  said  to  them: 

"I  hope  you  have  not  laid  him  amongst  the  paupers." 

Mr.  Fontaine  was  always  genteel. 


XXXII 

MELLERAY 

Instead  of  having  their  noses  placed  straight  away  against 
the  whetstone  of  life  in  the  eight  and  sixpenny  bandbox  by 
the  side  of  the  Thames,  after  the  old  gentleman  had  said 
something  over  them  in  the  Hammersmith  Road,  Finn  Fon- 
taine and  Deirdre  Asthar  were  able,  through  the  unexpected 
munificence  of  Lanthorn  in  connection  with  Finn's  Irish  ar- 
ticles appearing  in  his  review,  to  fulfil  the  wish  of  their 
hearts.  Their  heart's  desire  was  that  they  might  spend  their 
first  days  together  in  what  Paris  Asthar  used  to  call  "the  fast- 
ness of  the  White  Gods,"  that  ghostly  pile  of  buildings  up 
there  in  the  purple  heather-covered  mountains,  given  over  to 
the  wild  plover  and  the  glory  of  God. 

They  drove  up  towards  the  mountains  on  the  jaunting 
car  which,  as  the  driver  said,  only  hung  together  by  half  a 
spring  and  the  blessing  of  heaven.  Up  and  up,  leaving  the 
little  village  straggling  down  there  by  the  side  of  the  deep 
shining  Blackwater,  flecked  with  the  foam  bubbles  of  morn- 
ing. Up  and  up,  past  the  solitary  wayside  cabin  where  the 
bare-footed  ragged  children  came  out  to  smile  in  friendly  shy- 
ness at  Deirdre.  Up,  into  the  blue  air  of  the  morning  of  early 
autumn  scented  with  the  tang  of  the  peat,  until  the  habitations 
of  men  were  left  behind  and,  as  Mick  the  driver  said,  they 
were  "alone  with  God.  And  sure,"  said  he,  "isn't  that  a 
terrible  thing  entirely?" 

So  they  came  to  the  gates  of  naked  iron  that  barred  the 
way  to  the  granite  Paradise — behind  which,  like  a  grey  mush- 
room, nestled  the  tiny  stone  lodge,  from  which  ran  a  cowled 
shadowy  figure  with  knotted  rope  girdle,  from  which,  like  a 
second  St.  Peter,  a  bunch  of  keys  dangled.  The  great  gates 
swung  silently  apart  and  they  found  themselves  between  the 
high  narrow  walls  of  the  grey  stone  of  which  the  place  was 

299 


300  GODS 

built,  a  veritable  rock  of  God.  Behind,  the  cells  of  those 
monks,  who,  that  they  might  the  better  make  the  sacrifice  of 
immolation  .with  the  Ineffable,  had  vowed  themselves  to  eter- 
nal silence. 

Deirdre,  her  eyes  shining  in  that  high  thin  air,  her  red  lips 
parted,  bloomed  there  between  the  high  walls  like  the  moss 
roses  which  nestled  in  the  shadows  at  their  feet,  the  blooms 
standing  velvety  against  the  stone. 

They  drove  out  of  the  narrowness  of  the  way  that  wound 
into  the  heart  of  holiness  to  find  themselves  in  the  great  square 
of  the  courtyard  before  a  low  grated  postern,  to  be  conscious 
of  a  face  that  searched  them  from  the  shadow,  then  the  shut- 
ting of  it  out,  and  then  the  silent  opening  of  the  door. 

Here  in  the  guest-house  they  found  the  young  monk  with 
the  rosy  complexion  and  the  brown  kindling  eyes  who  brought 
their  first  separation  on  earth.  In  vain  that  Deirdre,  pagan 
that  she  was,  bit  her  lip  and  looked  in  mute  rebellion  upon 
the  rosy-faced  janitor.  But  it  seemed  that  here  in  Paradise 
the  male  sheep  had  to  be  shepherded  from  the  female  goats. 

The  ladies  had  an  enclosure  to  themselves,  so  that  the  more 
vulnerable  sides  of  masculinity  might  be  segregated  from  the 
assaults  of  the  flesh  and  the  female  devil.  The  White  Gods, 
for  all  that  Beautiful  Lady,  crowned  and  throned  amongst 
them,  were  male.  Woman  was  the  unclean  being. 

There,  amongst  a  lot  of  holy  women,  who  told  their  beads 
and  their  stories  with  equal  assiduity,  Deirdre,  young  and  beau- 
tiful, a  dove  amongst  hens,  found  herself.  Young  mountainy 
women  told  her  of  sins  they  had  never  committed,  and  old 
women  from  the  plains  and  bogs,  of  dead  sins  they  would  like 
to  commit,  but  couldn't.  And  here,  herded  together  in  this 
corral  of  the  faith,  they  drenched  themselves  with  tea,  that 
"spiritual  drink"  of  Miss  Kitty. 

As  for  Finn,  he  found  himself  at  one  corner  of  a  long  table 
surrounded  by  rosy-cheeked,  snub-nosed  pig  buyers,  long-faced, 
cautious-eyed  farmers,  and  young  gentlemen  from  the  cities, 
with  inclination  to  pimples,  all  fast  returning  under  the  minis- 
trations of  the  monks  to  a  state  of  grace.  There  also  were 
those  great  dome-headed  theologians  of  Ireland,  in  whom  Finn 
recognised  the  breed  of  Father  Con,  and  amongst  them,  look- 
ing thoroughly  ashamed  of  himself,  a  very  rare  theological  goat, 
still  clothed  in  the  black  coat  of  righteousness,  sent  for  his 


MELLERAY  301 

sins  up  here  into  the  cleansing  air  of  the  mountains — a  goat 
who  sat  furtively  alone  and  watched  out  at  the  circumambient 
state  of  grace  from  which  he  had  fallen  through  putting  too 
little  water  in  his  whiskey.  Whilst  from  behind  came  the  voice 
of  a  young  and  ghostly  visitant,  habited  in  white,  who,  un- 
noticed, had  stolen  in  to  read  for  their  spiritual  edification  an 
account  of  the  lives,  and  especially  of  the  deaths,  of  the  saints, 
describing  to  an  intensive  accompaniment  of  knife  and  fork, 
which  seemed  to  gather  zest  from  the  recital,  an  anatomically 
minute  analysis  of  their  sufferings. 

The  air  of  the  mountains — the  consciousness  of  grace — all 
led  to  inordinate  consumption  of  the  juicy  mutton,  succulent 
beef  and  sour  milk,  which  were  the  nectar  and  ambrosia  of 
Melleray — the  food  of  the  gods. 

And  then,  afterwards,  the  sudden  hush,  and  the  low  even 
voice  of  the  monk  who  had  entered,  the  other  gliding  out  when 
his  work  was  done: 

"Confiteantur  tibi,  Domine,  omnia  opera  tua."  With  the 
murmured  reply  from  those  around: 

"Et  sancti  tul  benedicant  tibi" 

Again  came  the  voice  of  the  monk: 

"Gloria  Patri,  'et  Filio,  et  Spiritu  sancto" 

And  then  the  chorussed,  indomitable: 

"Sicut  erat  in  principio,  et  nunc,  et  semper,  et  in  scecula 
sceculorum.  Amen." 

"As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world 
without  end.  Amen." 

There  came  to  Finn  the  grey  ruin  of  a  chapel,  standing  on 
a  high  shelf  of  cliff,  looking  out  over  broad  seas. 

Here,  in  Melleray,  the  spiritual  and  the  material  were  close. 
The  two  worlds  were  not  separated  by  the  barrier  of  the  in- 
visible. The  White  Gods  of  Paris  Asthar  up  there  on  the  slopes 
of  the  mountains  were  very  aloof  and  very  familiar — tenderly 
indulgent  to  the  frailities  of  poor  mortality.  Like  Father  Le- 
strange,  inflexible  in  dogma,  they  were  flexible  in  conduct.  A 
permanent  state  of  grace,  save  for  the  lambs  of  the  elect,  white- 
fleeced  in  habit  and  cowl,  who  even  then  had  to  mortify  the 
flesh  by  flagellation  and  penance,  shut  themselves  in  behind 
stone  walls,  and,  generally,  isolate  themselves  from  the  wooing 
of  the  earthy  world  outside — was  impossible.  The  love  of 
whiskey;  the  love  of  those  unclean  creatures,  women;  the  love 


302  GODS 

of  forbidden  fruits:  these  things  were  inherent  in  Adamic  hu- 
manity, spiritual  lapses  were  in  a  sense  the  normal,  as  were 
their  concomitants — spiritual  bursts  into  Melleray — so  conse- 
crated, refreshed,  for  further  falls. 

And  so,  the  women  stilL'shut  up  within  their  enclosure,  the 
male  sheep,  with  some  male  goats  among  them,  were  taken  the 
rounds  for  their  moral  edification.  They  were  shown  those 
bare  cubicles  of  chastity  in  which  the  monks  spent  but  a  hand- 
ful of  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  giving  the  rest  to  the  glory 
and  praise  of  the  Godhead  in  the  Mass.  And  it  was  from 
one  such  cubicle  that  Finn,  left  for  a  moment  behind,  saw  a 
sorrowful  figure  steal — the  high  pale  brow  glistening  with  the 
sweat  of  the  spirit  under  the  flagellations  of  that  flesh  which 
here  was  not  its  temple  but  its  mortal  enemy.  And  all  this 
time,  Deirdre,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  protestant  as  her 
heretic  father,  strained  at  the  invisible  bars  to  come  to  life  and 
love,  listening  unheeding  to  the  women  about  her,  to  the  holy 
talk  which  flowed  along  its  time-worn  grooves,  ceaseless  and 
unchecked. 

Faith  and  morals  tended  to  rest  up  here  on  the  slopes  of 
the  purple  hills.  Complin,  and  then  to  bed  in  that  tiny  room 
where  in  the  holy  books  on  the  narrow  table  Finn  met  once 
more  the  tortures  of  the  saints.  Reading  by  the  light  of  the 
thin  solitary  candle,  his  eye  lifted  now  and  again  to  the  plain 
crucifix,  with,  underneath:  "Oh,  sweet  Jesus,  may'st  thou  be 
ever  crucified  in  my  heart  by  nails  of  love,  who  for  love  of  me 
wast  crucified  with  nails  of  iron  on  the  hard  wood  of  the  cross 
.  .  ."  And  over  the  high  mantelpiece  the  plain  black  and 
white  of  the  printed  text,  with  the  word  "Eternity"  brooding 
over  all,  and  below  that  frantic  ticking  of  the  square  wooden 
clock  with  its  hurrying  pendulum:  Tick- tick — tick- tick,  that 
seemed  to  say  Et-er-ni-ty — Et-er-ni-ty — then  a  success  of  ticks: 
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick,  each  moment  treading  upon  the 
heels  of  the  other,  tremulous,  insistent,  menacing. 

Finn's  eyes,  searching  the  text,  read:  "If  each  grain  of 
sand  were  a  million  years  .  .  .  that  would  not  be  eter- 
nity .  .  ."  Where  was  it  he  had  read  it  before,  or  heard 
it? 

Then  he  remembered.  It  was  the  Elder's  prayer — that  day 
of  long  ago  at  Mrs.  Titterling's.  It  was  those  great  White 
Gods,  set  against  the  starry  firmament  of  blue  and  gold,  meet- 


MELLERAY  303 

ing  in  the  circle  of  faith  that  darker,  gloomier  god  of  the 
Spirit's  Elect  and  those  gods  of  blood  and  fire  of  Aunt  Bella. 
Faith  was  one  thing  after  all,  under  all  guises.  It  took  differ- 
ent forms,  but  it  was  the  same  thing. 

Up  there  in  the  silence,  it  broke  on  Finn.  Perhaps  all  faiths 
had  the  same  kernel.  Perhaps  all  these  faiths  were  but  means 
to  find  out  God — perhaps  all  roads  led  to  God.  Perhaps  the 
God  of  his  father  and  grandmother  and  Mrs.  Titterling  as 
of  Father  Lestrange  and  Billy  Pickles  was  the  same  God.  Per- 
haps no  man  by  searching  could  find  out  God,  but  perhaps  no 
man  could  escape  Him. 

And  thinking  this,  he  fell  asleep  to  the  hurried  ticking  of  that 
clock :  Et-er-ni-ty — Et-er-ni-ty — Et-er-ni-ty — Et-er-ni-ty. 

Finn  awoke  in  the  grey  of  the  dawn  where  the  shadows 
still  clung  like  cobwebs  outside  the  window  panes — awoke  in 
that  silence  which  seemed  to  have  grown  there  like  a  concretion 
through  the  years,  from  that  day  when  these  poor  monks,  flee- 
ing from  a  hostile  land,  had  come  up  there  to  the  bleak  hill- 
sides to  find  to  their  hands  only  the  purple  heather  and  the 
grey  boulders — those  willing  hearts  animated  by  that  love 
which  had  conjured  out  of  nothingness  the  battlements  of  the 
faith. 

He  found  himself  listening  to  the  breathless  beat  of  the 
clock  which  warned  the  sinner  of  the  shortness  of  time  and 
horror  unending. 

A  hollow  cough  came  from  beneath  his  window. 

He  rose,  to  see  in  the  tiny  enclosed  yard  below,  with  the 
grey  cobblestones  that  brought  back  the  House  of  Dreams,  a 
lonely  cowled  figure.  It  was  that  of  an  old  bearded  man,  his 
hands  laid  in  the  hanging  sleeves  of  his  brown  habit,  the  cowled 
face,  dimly  realised,  searching  up  there  over  the  high  grey 
walls  to  where  a  single  shaft  of  light  struck  rosy  upon  a  dis- 
tant mountain  peak. 

The  old  grey  face  searched  for  it  as  a  blinded  man  turns 
towards  the  light:  the  old  grey  lips  moved  in  prayer:  the  fin- 
gers stole  down  for  the  beads  that  hung  from  the  corded  waist. 
Something  stirred  in  Finn. 

It  was  outside,  wandering  in  the  golden  dawn  within  that 
iron  compound  of  the  faith  that  Finn,  pondering  that  face 
of  the  old  man  as  he  searched  towards  the  rosy  spurs  of  Knock- 


304  GODS 

mealdown,  saw  across  the  space  of  the  green  walled  courtyard 
a  face  looking  at  him  through  the  grating  of  the  wooden  gate. 
It  was  the  face  of  Eve  shut  out  from  Paradise — the  tousled 
hair  and  green  eyes  of  Deirdre,  who  beat  herself  like  a  bird 
at  the  grating.  And  then  the  face  had  disappeared  and  had 
shown  itself  over  the  wall  at  the  side,  to  be  followed  by  the 
figure  that  wriggled  over — and  so  she  came  running  to  him  in 
the  green  and  bronze  of  the  autumn  morning,  running  across 
those  precincts  sacred  to  the  male,  and  had  thrown  herself  into 
his  arms  before  the  line  of  monks  then  filing  in  lonely  file  to 
their  chapel,  and  had  kissed  him  upon  the  lips. 

The  cowled  heads  bowed  themselves  as  though  blinded  by 
an  unaccustomed  light,  and  then  had  passed. 

A  white-robed  figure  came  stealing  to  them  across  the  grey 
stones,  a  man  of  waxen  face  and  great  dark  eyes.  Only  that 
the  eyes  softened  a  little  as  they  rested  upon  the  face  of  the 
young  girl — softened  with  the  pity  of  knowledge  for  the  ignor- 
ance of  young  life.  A  flush  had  come  into  the  hollow  cheeks 
as  they  fell  upon  the  fair  young  breast  that  showed  itself  be- 
neath the  V  of  the  green  dress,  and  so  the  cowled  head  had 
turned  to  Finn  with  a  grave:  "No  woman  has  ever  before 
set  her  foot  within  this  enclosure.  It  is  a  very  great  sin.  And 
your  wife  will  please  close  her  dress  for  Christ's  sake." 

And  so  fairness  had  to  be  covered  in  so  that  it  might  not 
shame  the  glory  of  the  white  gods — and  so  Deirdre,  her  little 
green  dressed  pinned  closely  up,  was  led  away  through  the 
barred  portals,  which  were  locked  upon  her — but  not  before 
she  had  turned  and  sent  a  lightning  message  to  her  man  who 
stood  there  looking  after  her. 

But  Finn  felt  that  these  gods  were  all-powerful — implacable. 
Had  they  not  shut  out  love? 

It  was  with  him  as  the  brown-eyed  monk  of  the  first  day 
unlocked  the  shuttered  window  to  show  them  those  lonely 
mounds  with  their  crosses  of  black  timber  to  mark  where  the 
children  of  God,  waiting  the  signal  for  judgment,  crouched  un- 
derneath in  the  way  of  their  Order.  It  was  with  him  as  he 
saw  the  solitary  figure  of  a  young  monk,  the  grave  in  which  he 
stood  still  shallow  in  the  springtime  of  life,  lifting  his  daily 
sod  from  the  hollow  that  was  one  day  to  receive  him.  With 
him  even  when  he  remembered  how  once  Stella  Fay,  that  girl 
lying  now  so  cold  up  there  under  the  shadow  of  the  old  chapel, 


MELLERAY  305 

had  broken  the  law  against  love  that  day  when,  in  this 
place  of  dying  men,  she  had  sprung  into  the  open  grave  by 
the  side  of  a  young  monk  and  had  kissed  him  full  upon 
his  lips. 

But  the  white  gods  had  shut  out  love. 

It  was  with  him  in  the  glory  of  the  mass  of  the  early  morning 
where  the  sun  shone  rosy  upon  the  loftiness  of  the  bare  altar, 
served  by  the  high,  tonsured  priests,  where  the  sacrifice  to 
Omnipotence  made  its  circle  of  the  hours.  With  him  as  he 
gazed  upon  the  faces  of  the  monks,  those  faces  of  parch- 
ment or  ivory  or  wax,  segregated  from  sin  and  suffering  up 
there  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains — those  faces  before  which 
the  span  of  life,  its  nights  and  mornings  merging,  passed  as 
one  long  day.  It  was  with  him  as  he  looked  upon  the  face  of 
one  old  man,  now  almost  at  his  hundreth  milestone,  the  white- 
bearded  face  rosy  as  a  child's  with  the  rapture  of  the  Mass,  as 
he  repeated:  "Et  expecto  resurrectionem,  mortuorum,  et  vitam 
venturi  sceculi.  Amen."  Waiting  in  the  sure  and  certain  hope 
to  meet  his  God,  his  eyes  aglow  with  the  light  of  portals  not 
of  earth — a  soul  who  had  glimpsed  the  golden  floor  through 
the  gates  ajar,  the  light  shining  upon  him  from  within. 

But  the  gods  were  implacable — they  had  shut  out  love. 

It  was  with  him  at  the  midnight  mass,  when  the  hooded  fig- 
ures stole  into  the  chapel  in  the  tapered  darkness,  shadows 
materialising  from  shadow.  With  him  in  that  song  of  all  the 
seamen  of  the  world:  the  gentle  "Ave  Maris  Stella,"  the  greet- 
ing to  the  star  of  evening — the  gentle  friend  of  poor  sailormen 
—the  Queen  of  Heaven  and  the  Mother  of  God.  It  was  with 
him  in  that  mystic  carillon,  herald  of  that  Elevation  when 
bread  and  wine  became  flesh  and  blood,  as  in  the  tremendous 
murmured:  "Credo  in  unum — Deum,  Patrem  omnipotentem, 
Factorem  coeli  et  term,  visibilium  omnium  et  invisibilium" 
"I  believe  in  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  maker  of  heaven 
and  earth,  and  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible." 

It  was  with  them  in  the  soft  glow  of  the  tapers  burned  to 
those  gods — with  him  there  under  the  incensed  lights. 

And  it  was  with  him  that  last  evening  of  late  autumn  when 
he  and  Deirdre,  going  outside  the  walls  of  the  monastery  to 
make  love  out  there  on  the  hillside,  had  seen  that  solitary 
cowled  monk,  mattock  in  hand,  the  skirt  looped  over  naked 
sandalled  feet,  returning  from  his  day  of  toil,  the  man  who 


306  GODS 

brought  back  to  him  his  father.  He,  too,  was  reaching  the  end 
of  the  road 

For  above  and  beyond  all  were  the  gods;  the  gods  implaca- 
ble; who  gathered  them  all  in. 

But  they  had  turned  and  kissed  there  in  the  autumn  gloam- 
ing. Kissed  with  passion.  Love  and  life  amidst  death. 

Even  the  White  Gods  could  not  shut  out  love. 


XXXIII 

THE   FIGHT   TO   LIVE 

Finn  and  Deirdre  went  back  to  London  to  begin  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  in  the  little  flat  with  the  green  door  by  the 
side  of  the  Thames.  Of  the  means  to  live,  they  had  under 
fifty  pounds  and  would  have  had  less  had  it  not  been  for  the 
generosity  of  the  monks  up  there  in  the  mountains  who  would 
not  take  anything  from  them.  "The  fight  to  live  is  hard 
enough,"  that  monk  with  the  dark  eyes  and  waxen  face,  who 
had  made  Deirdre  close  her  dress  for  the  glory  of  God,  had  said. 

Each  week  saw  a  hole  in  their  fifty  pounds.  The  mathe- 
matics of  free-lancing  in  Fleet  Street  were  those  of  subtraction 
— seldom  of  addition.  His  difference  with  Thrum  trailed  him 
everywhere.  It  was  not  that  he  had  quarrelled  with  Thrum 
that  hurt  him,  but  the  rumour  spread  through  Fleet  Street  that 
he  had  not  been  "loyal,"  was  "untrustworthy."  Although  he 
managed  to  pick  up  the  scraps  of  journalism,  writing  little  ar- 
ticles here  and  there  upon  anything  and  everything,  the  big 
things  always  seemed  to  elude  him. 

That  was  the  thing  that  ate  into  him.  He  knew  he  could 
do  the  things  that  brought  the  greater  rewards — some  of  them 
at  least  not  unworthy  in  themselves,  things  that  he  wanted  to 
do,  the  things  that  mattered,  and  here  he  was  condemned  to 
delve  in  the  scrapheaps  of  journalism.  He  suffered  many  in- 
dignities, some  of  them  imagined;  had  been  turned  out  of  an 
office  by  a  blackguardly  pirate  editor,  and  had  been  received 
by  the  luminaries  of  Fleet  Street  with  much  genuine  kindness 
although  many  regrets.  What  was  always  surprising  him  about 
Fleet  street  was  its  kindly  brutality. 

He  changed  his  name  again  and  yet  again.  But  his  manu- 
scripts went  out  and  came  back — saving  those  infrequent  flip- 
pancies which  were  helping  them  to  live.  For  the  lialf  guineas 
mounted  up  in  bulk.  If  he  used  his  name  it  spoiled  his  chances. 
If  he  did  not,  he  instantly  became  one  of  the  great  unknown. 

In  the  little  home  with  the  green  door  a  new  Deirdre  showed 

307 


3o8  GODS 

herself.  The  old  Deirdre  of  wayward  indulgence  had  long 
since  vanished.  She  was  Finn's  guide  and  comforter  and 
friend.  The  delicately  kept  hands  now  had  hard  finger  ends 
and  broken  quicks.  But  the  face  and  body  were  as  fresh 
as  that  day  when  he  first  had  seen  her  at  the  office  of  "The 
Earth." 

In  the  beginning  they  had  indulged  in  a  char-lady — a  Mrs. 
Coffin,  who  sometimes  turned  up  and  sometimes  didn't,  as  wild 
fancy  moved  her.  She  was  a  voluminous  voluble  person — a 
slave  to  hiccoughs,  and  her  ideas  of  cleanliness  were  scanty. 

She  would  drop  in  casually  about  midday,  tapping  her  silken 
bosom — she  always  wore  silks  of  variegated  colours — and 
would  recite  between  hiccoughs  a  short  story  which  rapidly  de- 
veloped into  a  romance  about  "herself  and  another  lady."  Mrs. 
Coffin  invariably  referred  to  herself  as  "a  lady,"  and,  as  Deirdre 
discovered  from  hearing  a  passage  at  arms  between  her  and 
the  cabdriver's  wife  downstairs,  upon  a  question  of  dustbin 
precedence,  had  her  Achillean  heel  in  the  epithet  "woman." 
This  was  the  affront  unpardonable. 

This  lady  disarranged  the  furniture  once  a  week  at  a  re- 
muneration of  one  shilling  and  threepence,  the  threepence  be- 
ing in  lieu  of  that  nourishing  stout  so  essential  to  a  woman 
in  her  condition.  She  was  always  referring  to  her  "condition." 

But  as  the  shillings  waned  in  the  postoffice  savings  book, 
Mrs.  Coffin  had  to  be  shelved,  and  so  Deirdre  did  the  work 
herself  and,  after  initial  knocked  fingers  and  some  barren  ex- 
periments in  patent  house-saving  appliances,  did  the  work  very 
much  better  than  her  predecessor.  Finn  washed  the  floors  with 
an  arrangement  which  Deirdre,  following  Black  Rock  nomen- 
clature, called  "the  contraption."  It  was  a  dishclout  tied  upon 
a  worn  sweeping-brush  which  made  housemaid's  knee  a  super- 
fluity. 

The  food  question  was  for  them  slightly  more  involved  than 
the  provisioning  of  the  armies  of  Ca3sar.  Finn  knew  nothing 
at  all  about  commissariat  and  Deirdre  just  as  much.  As  Deir- 
dre said,  "they  saw  them  coming." 

Butchers,  otherwise  normal  kindly  hearted  slaughterers, 
seemed  to  reserve  for  them  the  most  leathery  portions  of  their 
beef  and  mutton,  until  they  fell  upon  the  greasy  bosom  of  Mr. 
Belcher  in  the  High  Road,  who,  one  day,  after  selling  them 
an  entirely  uneatable  piece  of  brisket,  had  suddenly  changed 


THE  FIGHT  TO  LIVE  309 

his  mind  from  frantic  recommendation  to  subtle  condemna- 
tion, taking  back  the  yellow  monstrosity  from  Finn's  net  bag 
and  substituting  for  it  a  piece  of  meat  of  a  juiciness  till  then 
unknown  in  the  flat  with  the  green  door.  The  Belcher  wife, 
who  always  sat  like  a  gigantic  hen  behind,  in  the  pay-box, 
taking  pity  on  them,  had  signalled  him. 

From  that  moment  the  meat  problem  was  solved.  Mrs. 
Belcher  would  extract  herself  from  the  invisible  eggs  upon 
which  she  always  seemed  to  be  sitting  and  come  out  for  the 
purpose  of  adjuring  "John" — that  was  Mr.  Belcher — to  see 
that  they  got  the  choicest  portions.  So  it  was  that  delectable 
pig's  frys  (Mr.  Belcher  had  also  a  Pork  Establishment  at  the 
side),  tongues  that  tasted  like  marrow  and  pieces  of  corned 
beef  that  with  carrots  and  potatoes  melted  in  the  mouth,  found 
their  way  into  the  little  bag  which  Finn  carried  each  Saturday 
morning  up  to  the  High  Road — all  at  prices  which  they  did 
not  discover  until  long  afterwards  were  in  or  about  the  cost 
of  production. 

There  was  a  certain  etiquette  about  these  things.  Mr. 
Belcher,  displaying  a  delicacy  hitherto  unsuspected  in  the 
brisket  days,  would  show  Finn  a  tongue  marked  43.  6d.,  bend 
down,  find  an  imaginary  coarseness  of  grain  in  the  libelled  ani- 
mal which  had  been  its  possessor,  whip  off  the  brass  label, 
and  using  injurious  language  to  Bill,  the  butcher's  boy,  for  put- 
ting the  wrong  label  upon  the  meat,  that  young  gentleman  at 
this  juncture  usually  wearing  an  air  of  injured  innocence,  al- 
though obviously  in  the  plot,  would  gravely  substitute  one  at 
a  shilling  less,  take  it  out  again,  and  cram  the  lot  into  the  net 
bag. 

Vegetables  were  much  easier.  But  that  was  owing  to  a  Span- 
ish looking  man  in  a  back  street  with  two  greasy  dark-eyed 
daughters,  who,  chattering,  sat  at  the  receipt  of  custom. 

There  seemed  in  fact  to  be  a  general  conspiracy  to  protect 
these  two  innocents,  who,  in  unconscious  ingratitude,  rather 
fancied  themselves,  imagining  it  was  growing  experience  which 
enabled  them  to  get  such  excellent  value  for  their  money. 

Mr.  Majolica — that  was  the  greengrocer — his  dark  eyes 
gleaming  over  his  white  spade  beard,  would  himself  dive 
amongst  the  cauliflowers  and  cabbages  for  the  firmest,  whitest 
and  greenest.  He  it  was  who  warned  them  of  the  red  potatoes 
and  guided  them  to  the  balls  of  flour. 


310  GODS 

Groceries  were  more  difficult. 

At  the  beginning,  Finn,  alone  in  the  early  mornings,  would 
take  the  net  bag  and  go  up  to  Mr.  Hilltop's  because  it  was 
convenient  and  because  Mr.  Hilltop,  who  was  a  member  of  the 
Strict  Baptists,  was  such  a  nice  man.  It  was  only  when  many 
months  afterwards  he  discovered  that  the  Danish  bacon  for 
which  Mr.  Hilltop  in  the  fulness  of  his  heart  charged  one  shil- 
ling and  threepence,  could  be  purchased  in  the  Multiple  Stores 
in  the  High  Road  for  twopence  per  pound  less  and  standard 
jams  for  one  penny  less  than  at  Mr.  Hilltop's,  that  Finn,  to 
whom  the  pennies  were  now  beginning  to  matter,  left  Mr.  Hill- 
top to  that  gentleman's  unaccountably  un-Christian  astonish- 
ment, and  went  to  the  stores. 

Domestic  finance  was  fast  taking  upon  itself  the  nature  of 
a  fine  art.  In  the  beginning,  before  Deirdre's  new  clothes  wore 
out,  such  things  for  them  had  no  existence.  It  was  only  on 
that  fatal  day  when  Deirdre,  lifting  up  her  foot,  showed  Finn 
the  broken  upper  and  that  other  day  of  darkness  when  her 
best  dress  refused  any  longer  to  permit  itself  to  be  mended  un- 
der the  arms,  that  it  broke  upon  them  that  clothes  did  not 
grow  like  skins.  And,  not  so  long  after,  there  was  that  dark- 
est day  of  all  when  they  drew  their  last  four  shillings  from 
the  savings  bank. 

There  was  nobody  to  help  them.  Old  Asthar,  now  a  sullen 
old  vulture,  haunting  the  darkness  of  his  clubs,  was  silent  as 
the  grave  into  which  he  was  fast  falling.  Finn's  father  had 
died  with  just  enough  to  bury  him  after  the  furniture  had  been 
auctioned  off,  and  Finn's  mother,  still  bewildered,  had  gone  into 
a  dreadfully  respectable  Home  for  Decayed  Gentlewomen, 
where  she  was  fast  regaining  that  self-possession  which  had 
been  her  support  in  life.  Finn  prowled  Fleet  Street,  some- 
times wildly  fluttered  by  transient  cheque — sometimes  as 
deeply  depressed. 

But  through  it  all  Deirdre  comforted  him,  developing  a 
philosophy  of  faith  which  supported  Finn,  the  impatient,  even 
in  his  darkest  moments. 

And  all  the  time,  Finn  worked  upon  the  book,  long  since 
discarded — that  book  upon  Ireland  and  its  spiritual  significance 
for  the  coming  Europe — the  book  he  had  begun  that  day  when 
Paudeen  had  been  nearly  drowned. 

It  was  in  the  opening  chapters  of  Finn's  and  Deirdre's  for- 


THE  FIGHT  TO  LIVE  311 

tunes  that  what  was  known  as  the  Moroccan  Incident  took 
place.  It  was  about  an  intractable  tract  of  earth,  the  position 
of  which  nobody  knew  and  about  which,  seemingly,  nobodjf 
cared.  It  was  inhabited  by  some  caf£  au  lait  people,  about 
whose  views,  because  they  were  stained  brown  instead  of  being 
white,  nobody  troubled.  It  seemed,  however,  that,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  diplomacy,  it  was  "a  sphere  of  influence." 

Thrum  instantly  thundered  from  his  Fleet  Street  Olympus. 
Lanthorn  blew  his  penny  trumpet  in  reply.  The  man  in  the 
street  paid  his  halfpennies  and  read  it  all  as  though  the  world 
and  war  were  a  penny  peepshow.  As  time  went  on,  he  even 
developed  a  new-found  patriotism  about  this  sphere  of  influ- 
ence, without  having  any  precise  idea  as  to  where  or  why  it  was. 
Without  knowledge  of  empire,  he  called  himself  imperialist. 
He  took  sides.  Even  the  churches  took  sides.  Church  was 
on  one  side — chapel  on  another.  But  through  it  all,  Thrum 
thundered. 

There  was  a  fluttering  of  flags.  Questions  in  Parliament. 
The  stirring  up  of  old  treaties.  Men,  ill-considered  unimpor- 
tant men  throughout  the  world,  and  of  all  colours,  prophe- 
sied, and  like  their  predecessors  the  prophets  of  old  were 
laughed  at  and  forgotten. 

Then  Morocco  vanished  from  the  map  of  Europe  as  it  van- 
ished from  the  papers  and  was  forgotten  in  a  handspace. 

It  was  in  this  time,  when  Europe,  heavy,  was  travailing  for 
the  Event,  that  Deirdre  stood  in  the  grey  of  the  morning  be- 
fore Finn,  still  half-asleep  on  his  divan-bed,  and  bending  over 
him  hid  her  head  within  his  arms. 

"Finn,"  she  whispered  so  low  that  he  could  only  just  catch 
it.  "Finn,"  she  said,  as  she  pressed  herself  against  him.  And 
then  after  a  little  .  .  .  "can  you  not  feel  it — can  you  not 
feel  it  stirring?" 

A  tremor  came  to  him  from  her.  It  ran  through  him  like 
a  nervous  shock.  It  was  the  new  life. 


XXXIV 

THE   CLEANSING  OF  TREVOR  TITTERLING 

It  was  a  dark  January  evening  in  the  House  of  Titterling. 
The  leaden  skies  that  hung  above  London  had  held  their  frozen 
mask  throughout  the  short  January  day.  The  cold  seeped 
through  everywhere  like  some  slimy  thing  trying  to  crawl  its 
way  into  the  house  through  each  cranny. 

Not  a  sound  came  from  the  outside.  Not  a  note  of  bird. 
For  the  very  sparrows  cowered  together  under  the  icy  eaves  in 
trying  to  keep  out  the  frozen  death.  Even  the  brood  of  the 
younger  Titterlings  in  the  attic  above  were  frozen  into  silence. 

Only  one  sound  came  to  break  the  brooding  heaviness  of 
that  soundless  day.  The  sound  of  a  woman's  voice — a  woman 
singing  softly  to  herself  as  she  moved  about  the  house,  some- 
times coming  in  to  watch  her  husband,  sitting  crouched  to- 
baccoless  before  the  tiny  fire — a  pale-faced  penitent  trying  to 
read  one  of  the  black-bound  books  of  the  Elect. 

She  would  come  in  as  though  about  to  do  something  and 
would  turn  her  great  grey  eyes  upon  him  as  he  crouched  un- 
lovely, with  a  stare  that  at  times  was  terrifying.  She  would 
croon  to  herself  as  though  over  a  child,  looking  upon  him  with 
that  terrible  tenderness  and  would  then  go  out,  closing  the 
door  softly  behind  her. 

Trevor  Titterling,  sitting  there,  felt  that  stare,  and  careless 
devil  though  he  was,  it  made  him  uneasy.  Now  he  was  listen- 
ing to  her  go  down  the  steps  into  the  cellar  underneath  the 
house — that  cellar  hollowed  from  the  solid  ground,  with  the 
single  barred  window  and  low  thick  clamped  door  that  bolted 
on  the  outside  to  prevent  the  thieves  who  in  the  night  break 
through  and  steal  getting  into  the  house  itself,  the  cellar  in 
•v^hich  the  young  Titterlings  played  at  "bears  and  lions."  He 
heard  her  raking  amongst  the  coals  and  a  little  afterwards  lis- 
tened to  the  ascending  steps  which  passed  out  to  the  side  of 

312 


THE  CLEANSING  OF  TREVOR  TITTERLING    313 

the  house,  and  then  the  dull  clang  of  the  iron  shutter  which 
could  be  locked  over  the  cellar  window  at  nights. 

Something  seemed  to  echo  in  his  soul  as  the  dull  clamp 
struck  cold  upon  him.  It  was  as  though  the  door  of  a  tomb 
had  closed. 

He  shivered. 

And  then,  inconsequent,  his  mind  ran  to  that  day  some  three 
weeks  before  when  his  train  had  stopped  suddenly  outside  a  sta- 
tion, a  train  in  a  carriage  of  which  he  had  been  making  love  to 
Joan  Elliott,  that  young  woman,  the  last  of  his  light  o'  loves, 
to  whom  Finn  had  seen  him  saying  good-bye  that  day  of  the 
dead  years  at  Liverpool  Street  Station  and  who  had  now  come 
back  to  him.  He  had  always  had  a  weakness  for  Joan.  He 
had  had  the  girl  in  his  arms  when  that  other  train  had  stopped 
opposite  his  as  though  by  the  hand  of  God  .  .  .  and  he 
thought  the  woman  in  the  grey  dress  and  grey  hat  in  that  other 
carriage  was  his  wife.  But  he  could  not  be  sure.  And  he  had 
been  afraid  to  ask. 

But  she  had  gone  that  day  up  to  town  to  see  her  mother — 
and  it  might  have  been  so.  Yet  he  had  not  seen  her  looking  at 
them.  He  had  not  even  thought  of  the  train  in  his  hot  kisses 
and  had  only  looked  up  to  see  the  woman  in  grey,  alone  in  her 
carriage,  staring  away  from  them  and  out  of  her  own  window. 
It  could  not  have  been  she. 

But  Trevor  Titterling  was  uneasy.  "Had  the  creeps,"  he 
said. 

His  wife  had  been  busying  herself  about  that  cellar  for  the 
last  few  days.  He  had  asked  her  about  it,  but  she  had  said 
something  about  separating  the  wood  and  tinder  and  coal  which 
had  become  mixed  together.  He  did  not  bother  about  that. 
He  never  went  into  the  cellar.  But  there  had  been  the  sound 
of  hammering — a  dull  sound  as  though  something  were  being 
stopped  up. 

But  what  should  be  stopped  up?  Down  there  they  had  the 
cask  of  petroleum  and  some  wood  and  some  coal.  Nothing 
more. 

But  Trevor  Titterling  was  uneasy. 

And  still  the  crooning  came  to  him. 

Mary  Titterling  was  singing  those  terrible  hymns  of  the 
Spirit's  Elect — those  hymns  of  bitter-sweetness.  They  had 
always  terrified  him  in  a  queer  way  as  though  they  were  the 


314  GODS 

spells  of  malignant  implacable  spirits.  It  was  they  which  had 
frightened  him  into  religion — that  last  fright  of  the  mid-sum- 
mer which,  like  all  those  other  frights  before  it,  had  passed. 

For  Joan  had  come  back  to  him.  And  Joan  was  adorably 
sweet  and  enticing,  and  the  tides  of  life  still  ran  strongly  in 
his  thin  veins.  After  all,  time  enough  for  religion  when  Joan 
was  gone  and  his  pulses  had  ceased  to  throb. 

If  it  were  not  that  he  feared  those  spirits.  They  would  not 
let  him  escape.  They  were  watching  out  for  him — watching 
to  strike  him  down  at  the  very  moment  he  felt  most  safe — 
to  consign  him  to  eternal  tortures.  They  could  not  be  escaped, 
or  the  Thing  behind  them.  Trevor  Titterling  knew  that. 

He  shivered  again  as  he  listened  to  the  low  clear  voice  sing- 
ing now  more  strongly,  with  something  aspirant,  pleading: 

But  oh!  the  avenging  fires  of  hell, 
That  choke  and  scorch  and  writhe, 

Whilst  in  the  midst 

The  sinner  sits 
In  torment — yet  alive. 

For  oh!  the  flames — 

The  cleansing  flames — 
That  purge  the  sinner's  sin. 

They  burn  the  fear, 

They  burn  the  tear, 
They  bring  him  heaven  within. 

But  now  she  was  silent.  He  could  hear  her  coming  up  those 
stairs  for  the  last  time  with  that  steady  padding  of  the  feet. 

He  could  hear  her  outside  the  door.  He  saw  the  handle  turn 
and  then  his  wife  as  she  came  in,  the  grey  eyes,  luminous,  bent 
upon  him  with  a  certain  exaltation.  But  the  glance  of  the  eyes 
was  terrifying. 

There  was  nothing  of  which  to  be  afraid.  Mary  would  not 
look  at  him  like  that — with  that  pure-souled  utter  love  of  hers 
shining  through  the  veils  of  her  eyes  if  she  were  the  woman 
who  had  that  day  been  in  the  train.  She  knew  nothing. 

And  he  loved  her.  He  knew  that.  He  had  not  made  his 
own  body  or  the  soul  which  it  dominated.  It  was  not  his  fault 
that  he  could  no  more  make  love  to  those  clear  calm  eyes  than 
to  a  vestal  virgin.  The  Joans  of  the  world  were  for  the  bodies 
of  the  world.  The  Mary  Titterlings  were  for  the  souls. 


THE  CLEANSING  OF  TREVOR  TITTERLING    315 

She  only  wanted  him  to  help  her  with  the  coals  below.  They 
were  too  heavy  for  her  and  a  partition  had  fallen. 

It  came  to  him  as  a  sudden  relief.  Of  what  had  he  been 
afraid? 

She  went  before  him  down  the  cold  stone  steps.  There  was  a 
pungent  smell  of  paraffin. 

She  threw  back  the  heavy  door  of  clamped  iron.  He  could 
see  through  into  the  murk  of  the  place  which  was  filled  by  a 
greyness  as  of  a  pit,  the  only  light  seeping  its  way  through  the 
holes  of  the  narrow  iron  shutter  now  clamped  in  place. 

A  great  pile  of  wood  and  straw  had  been  swept  together  in 
the  middle  of  the  cellar,  a  mass  of  coal  thrown  loosely  over 
and  through  it.  It  covered  the  centre  of  the  floor,  throwing 
grotesque  shadows  upon  the  stone  walls.  The  smell  of  the  oil 
was  overpowering.  The  floor  was  drenched  with  it.  He  drew 
back  a  moment  from  the  place  as  though  it  had  been  a  place 
of  torture. 

He  turned  at  the  sound  of  the  grating  match,  saw  its  fiery 
passage  through  the  close  cold  air,  and  then  its  falling  upon 
the  pile.  He  looked,  stupidly,  as  a  tiny  wreath  of  smoke  curled 
upwards — and  then  he  had  found  himself  and  had  hurled  him- 
self upon  the  liquid  flame  that  ran  along  the  ground,  writh- 
ing before  him  like  a  living  thing.  He  beat  and  trampled  fran- 
tically. But  still  the  flames  ran  about  him,  their  blue  tongues 
licking  hungrily  upwards. 

He  turned  as  he  heard  the  clamp  of  the  great  door  behind 
and  the  shooting  of  the  bolts.  Hurled  himself  again  and  yet 
again  against  the  wood  and  iron,  leaving  pieces  of  his  flesh 
upon  the  iron  studs.  Breathless,  he  listened  for  a  moment, 
hearing  only  the  thudding  of  his  heart  and  the  spitting  of  the 
flames  .  .  . 

And  then  the  voice.    That  terrible  voice,  crooning: 

.  .  .  the   cleansing   flames 

That  purge  the  sinner's  sin. 
They  burn  the  fear  .  .  . 

He  called.  And  now  above  the  crackling  of  the  flames  he 
could  hear  her  praying — praying  behind  that  closed  door: 

"Oh,  God !  cleanse  Trevor — cleanse  him,  oh  Almighty  Father 
for  his  soul's  sake — cleanse  him  in  the  flames  of  hell.  Cleanse 


3i6  GODS 

him  from  the  things  that  clog — from  carnal  love — make  him 
pure  within  like  a  little  child." 

He  flung  himself  on  his  knees  against  the  door,  .fighting  for 
air.  He  also  prayed.  He  prayed  her  to  open.  He  promised 
repentance,  but  still  that  terrible  prayer  went  on  beyond  the 
door  shut  implacable  as  the  door  of  a  tomb:  "Cleanse  him,  oh, 
Father!  In  thy  Divine  Mercy,  purge  him  with  thy  purifying 

fires.     Purge  him  for  the  children's  sake — for  Christ's  sake 

» 

"Mary!     Mary!"  he  cried. 

But  still  the  voice  came,  insistent,  pitiless. 

The  flames  roared,  the  prayer  inside  had  sunk  to  a  hoarse 
whisper. 

And  then  the  first  long  scream  rang  out — and  then  another 
— and  then  that  dreadful  animal  whimpering. 

And  then,  at  last,  silence,  save  for  the  roaring  of  the  flames, 
now  breaking  through  the  door  to  turn  the  house  of  Titterling 
into  a  funeral  pyre. 


XXXV 

THE   BIRTH   OF   FINN 

Finn  Fontaine,  visiting  his  friends  upon  that  dark  evening 
of  January,  had  found  only  the  gutted  walls  of  the  house  about 
the  glowing  bed  in  which  lay  the  ashes  of  the  Titterlings.  All 
except  the  mother,  who  had  been  found  wandering  around  the 
furnace  of  the  house  crooning  to  herself,  her  eyes  ablaze  with 
madness,  to  be  led  away  to  her  final  home — the  Broadmoor 
criminal  lunatic  asylum,  "to  be  confined  at  His  Majesty's 
pleasure." 

He  had  come  with  a  heavy  heart  because  he  and  Deirdre 
now  knew  that  the  threat  of  two  months  before  had  materi- 
alised. 

The  little  life  of  which  he  had  learnt  in  the  dawn  of  that 
morning  had  ceased  to  be  life.  It  had  almost  ceased  to  stir 
in  its  gropings  from  the  infinite  to  the  finite.  And  so  they 
had  been  troubled,  and  in  their  doubts  had  gone  to  a  local 
doctor. 

The  case  was  not  one  with  which  he  could  deal,  he  had  said. 
It  was  a  case  for  the  specialist.  A  certain  sample  would  have 
to  be  submitted.  Tests  would  have  to  be  made  .  .  . 

But  it  had  seemed  to  them  there  was  nothing  to  fear.  Deirdre 
had  not  felt  ill.  It  was  only  that  silence  within — as  of  a  tomb. 

He  had  sat  in  the  gloomy  consulting  room  in  Portland  Place 
and  had  listened  to  the  steady  ticking  of  the  clock  in  the 
silence. 

And  then  the  great  man  had  stood  before  him,  silent,  as 
befitted  an  arbiter  of  fate.  He  had  listened  to  the  story  of 
Finn  as  a  man  listens  to  an  old  tale — listened  with  his  head 
resting  in  his  hand — that  soft  white  hand  which  yet  had  some- 
thing pitiless  in  it. 

Finn  had  watched  his  back  as  he  held  the  sample  he  had 
brought  in  a  tiny  test-tube  over  the  blue  flame  of  the  Buntzen 
burner — had  watched  the  liquid  contents  turn  to  ink  and  had 


3i8  GODS 

felt  his  own  heart  become  darker  and  darker  with  the  play  of 
the  flame. 

Then  he  had  delivered  judgment.    Remorseless  judgment. 

Finn  had  heard  him  as  from  a  great  distance  and  as  though 
he  were  not  concerned  in  it.  It  seemed  superfluous.  For  he 
had  known  it  in  his  own  way.  He  knew  it  as  he  watched  the 
play  of  the  flame  and  the  poise  of  the  man  with  the  tube. 

A  gleam  of  pity,  transient,  came  into  the  face  of  the  man 
with  the  tube,  passed,  and  was  gone. 

It  was  a  curious  case,  he  had  said — in  some  respects  unique, 
but  it  was  not  quite  unknown.  It  was  a  case  of  sugar  secretion 
— that  sugar  which,  in  the  last  stages,  turned  to  deadly  acid. 
Yes,  Deirdre  would  have  her  child,  but  the  child  would  be 
born  either  crippled  or  dead,  and  the  mother  would  scarcely 
know  of  its  coming.  She  would  pass  into  a  merciful  un- 
consciousness— and  with  the  coming  of  life  there  would  also 
be  a  going — death  was  the  corollary  of  life.  She  would  pass 
out  in  that  coma  from  which  only  one  woman  had  awakened 
.  .  .  And  that  was  all. 

Finn  found  himself  listening  with  meticulous  interest  to  the 
ticking  of  the  watch  in  his  pocket  and  noting  a  tiny  vein  that 
twisted  itself  across  the  large  signet  garnet  upon  the  white 
hand  before  him.  Then  he  had  laid  the  five  golden  sovereigns 
and  the  two  half  crowns  upon  the  table.  He  had  placed  his 
hand  within  the  white  hand  of  the  man  in  front  of  him — the 
man  who  now  had  something  strained  in  his  eyes.  And  then 
he  had  found  himself  in  the  roar  of  the  Regent  Street  traffic. 

The  thrash  of  the  hoofs;  the  cry  of  the  paper  boys;  the  voice 
of  the  bus  conductor  as  he  asked  for  his  fare — all  came  to  him 
as  from  the  other  side  of  something — from  another  place,  far 
away. 

He  had  gone  through  the  little  green  door  to  where  Deirdre 
waited,  all  unconscious.  She  looked  up  from  where  she  was 
working  over  some  tiny  garment  under  the  oil  lamp — looked 
up,  to  know  the  truth  in  that  moment. 

It  was  Deirdre  who  faced  the  thing  that  was  coming  with 
that  new  faith  which  sometimes  seemed  to  Finn  to  hold  all 
things.  It  was  Deirdre,  her  little  face  framed  in  the  halo  of 
her  hair  under  the  oil  lamp,  who  turned  to  him  and  kissed  him 
— Deirdre  who  had  sat  upon  his  knee  as  he  told  her  the  whole 
story  as  he  might  a  child.  'And  it  was  Deirdre  who  had  said: 


THE  BIRTH  OF  FINN  319 

"That  is  all  right,  Finn.     You  and  I  cannot  fear— God  is 
everywhere." 

And  then,  inconsequent,  she  had  broken  down,  hiding  her 
face  as  was  her  way  in  his  shoulder  and  crying  softly  to  her- 
self. "I  don't  want  to  leave  you,  Finn,"  she  had  whispered  as 
though  in  apology.  "But  God  is  everywhere." 

She  had  never  before  spoken  of  God — not  in  that  way.  Even 
in  that  moment,  that  came  to  him. 

It  was  then  that,  still  sobbing  uncontrollably  at  intervals, 
she  told  him  that  whether  life  or  death  came,  she  wanted  it 
to  come  in  Ireland.  It  was  in  that  moment  Finn  knew  what 
country  meant  for  Deirdre.  "If  little  Finn" — she.  had  always 
been  sure  the  child  would  be  a  boy — "if  little  Finn  were  born 
anywhere  but  in  Ireland,  he  would  never  forgive  his  dead 
mother."  And  so  it  had  been  decided. 

They  had  come  to  Dublin  to  a  home  of  which  Mrs.  O'Hara 
knew.  When  they  reached  the  ancient  Dublin  mansion,  it  was 
like  meeting  an  old  friend.  Finn  remembered  in  some  time 
or  place  the  great  kindly  house  at  the  corner  with  the  door, 
so  curiously  unproportioned,  at  the  side — the  old  low  door  of 
oak  that  had  been  darkened  by  the  centuries,  with  the  oak 
garlands  carved  out  of  the  solid  mass,  and,  above,  the  big 
brass  knocker  with  the  face  of  the  cherub. 

Inside,  and  he  recognised  the  great  stairs  that  wound  them- 
selves into  the  upper  regions — the  low  gloomy  reception  rooms 
with  the  floors  of  polished  oak — the  white  marble  mantelpieces 
stained  by  age,  and  all  the  tender  windings  of  the  place.  It 
was  an  old  friend. 

An  old  man,  of  thin  bearded  face  and  misty  kindly  eyes, 
was  crossing  the  marble  flagstones  on  his  sticks  as  they  came 
through,  had  looked  at  them  a  moment,  and  then  had  passed 
into  a  room  at  the  side. 

Deirdre,  happy  in  the  old  house,  had  made  friends  in  her 
own  shy,  impulsive  way  with  the  white-haired  beautiful  woman 
who  had  yielded  marriage  and  children  for  the  sake  of  others, 
and  that  first  night  had  laid  herself  to  rest  with  a  smile  of 
happy  content. 

But  always  that  terrible  acid  increased — that  malignant  se- 
cretion that  was  to  be  fatal  to  her  own  life  and  that  threat- 
ened the  child  within — the  little  life  that  struggled  ever  fainter 
as  its  time  drew  near. 


320  GODS 

And  then  that  morning  when  Finn  had  come  in  to  find  the 
first  travailing  of  life,  and  Deirdre,  white-faced,  with  the  tears 
shining  in  her  eyes — unafraid. 

"You  will  be  with  me,  Finn,  dear,"  she  had  whispered,  still 
with  that  sad  happy  smile— "with  me  until  the  end — that  is 
not  an  end  but  a  beginning,"  she  had  added  after  a  moment. 
She  had  pressed  his  hand  in  both  of  hers. 

"There  is  nothing  more  to  say,  dear  heart,"  she  had  gone 
on.  "We  have  spoken  of  all  and  arranged  all — and  if  I  pass 
over  you  shall  not  long  be  alone,  for  you  shall  come  to  me 
soon — but  not  too  soon,  for  you  have  your  work  to  do  and  I 
shall  be  with  you  always.  I  shall  be  with  you  in  the  air  you 
breathe  and  in  the  room  at  night — I  shall  be  with  you  dream- 
ing and  waking.  And  some  day  you  will  see  me  as  you  see 
me  now  .  .  ."  She  had  paused  an  instant,  and  then  had 
said,  in  a  whisper:  "But  perhaps  God  will  give  me  the  hun- 
dredth chance  .  .  .  perhaps  he  thinks  you  must  not  be 
left  alone  yet." 

She  gasped  a  little,  her  eyes  shining  with  vision,  as  though 
she  had  searched  the  immutable  and  got  her  answer. 

So  he  had  been  with  her  through  the  day — that  day  of  pain. 
They  had  sat  together  like  children,  each  clasping  the  other's 
hands — and  when  the  pains  had  been  too  much  he  had  placed 
his  arm  about  her  as  though  to  shield  her. 

They  had  been  together  throughout  the  day  until  the  mo- 
ment when  he  had  to  leave  her.  She  looked  at  him,  in  long 
dreaming,  as  he  turned  to  go  and  she  did  not  take  his  hand 
or  say  good-bye.  He  had  turned  at  the  door  and  then  had 
closed  it  softly. 

Downstairs  in  the  great  hall  he  found  the  gentle  old  man 
who  with  his  sticks  had  sat  below  in  the  room  with  the  big 
chair  through  the  years.  He  had  sat  there  through  the  years, 
crippled,  and  had  prayed  for  those  above  him  who  gave  new 
life  to  the  earth.  And  there  it  was  that  Finn  found  him,  the 
blue  eyes  looking  on  him  with  a  great  pity. 

"Wait  a  bit,"  he  had  said.  "Wait  a  bit,  now.  Sure,  can't 
you  leave  a  little  bit  to  God?" 

And  there  they  had  sat  on  either  side  of  the  great  fireplace 
with  the  brass  dogs,  watching  the  dying  embers  in  the  unlighted 
room. 

They  had  heard  the  trot  of  the  horses'  hoofs  on  the  hard 


THE  BIRTH  OF  FINN  321 

road  and  the  knock  that  had  meant  the  doctor.  They  had 
listened  to  the  steps  ascending  the  stairs.  And  so  the  hours  had 
gone  by  and  Finn,  to  his  bitter  self-reproach,  had  found  himself 
unafraid.  In  the  darkened  womb  of  the  great  house  it  seemed 
as  though  all  things  were  enclosed  and  sure — as  though  a  new 
philosophy  were  coming  to  him  in  the  silence — a  philosophy  not 
of  death,  but  of  life — and  yet  of  death,  too. 

He  had  ceased  to  think  of  the  little  white  face  lying  up  there 
waiting  on  the  threshold  where  life  and  death  meet — had,  in- 
stead, come  to  think  of  her  as  something  far  away — not  as 
Deirdre,  but  as  a  dear  being  he  had  once  known  and  would 
always  know. 

Only  the  tick  of  the  grandfather's  clock  in  the  hall  came  to 
them  as  they  sat  there  in  the  shadows — youth  and  age.  And 
once  in  a  while,  the  old  man's:  "Wait  a  bit.  Wait  a  bit,  now. 
Sure,  can't  you  leave  a  little  bit  to  God?" 

And  then  the  steps  descending  the  stairs. 

The  doctor  stood  before  him  in  the  open  doorway  with  the 
flames  playing  on  his  white  face — the  face  of  a  man  who  had 
wrestled  with  Death  and  who  was  being  beaten,  the  red  strong 
hair  lying  dankly  across  the  moist  forehead. 

Deirdre  was  in  coma.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  as- 
sured. He  had  to  be  prepared. 

But  still  that  strange  indifference,  that  almost  terrible  confi- 
dence filled  him. 

And  then  the  steps  going  up  the  stairs  again.  And  again 
the  old  man's  recurrent:  "Wait  a  bit — wait  a  bit  now.  You 
must  leave  a  little  bit  to  God." 

And  still  the  tick  of  the  clock  in  the  silence  of  the  house. 
And  once  more  the  steps  descending  and  the  pale  face  stand- 
ing again  before  him  with  a  tiny  spot  hectic  in  either  cheek, 
but  this  time  the  face  of  a  man  who  had  wrestled  with  Death 
and  won.  It  was  Deirdre's  "hundredth  chance." 

"You  can  come  now,"  was  all  that  he  said. 

But  Finn's  heart  rose  within  him  to  stifle.  Up  through 
the  old  house — up  to  that  room  where  Deirdre,  white-faced, 
the  dank  death-dews  still  standing  upon  her  forehead — but 
smiling  to  him,  smiling  to  him  in  that  deathless  way  of  hers. 

And  by  her  side  a  tiny  creature  lay  stiffly,  its  eyes  closed,  but 
its  tiny  chest  rising  and  falling. 

Finn's  heart  leaped.    It  was  their  child. 


XXXVI 

THE   STORY   OF   FINN 

Finn  looked  down  upon  the  morsel  of  life  which  the  white- 
haired  nurse  had  placed  in  his  arms  in  a  sort  of  wonder.  The 
shrunken  withered  face  seemed  to  him  of  the  stuff  of  which 
gods  are  made.  The  eyes,  now  unclosing,  that  petered  up  to 
him  unseeing,  became  for  him  the  most  beautiful  eyes  in  the 
world — the  tiny  clenched  fists  and  the  shrivelled  limbs,  perished 
by  that  cruel  poison,  assumed  for  him  dimensions  more  than 
mortal,  and,  as  he  held  this  soundless  thing  in  his  arms — for 
little  Finn  was  silent  from  his  birth — it  seemed  to  him  that  the 
continuity  of  life  upon  the  planet  was  assured  through  this 
frail  combination  of  bone,  blood  and  nerve. 

Finn  the  little  had  to  be  placed  before  the  fire  in  the  lap 
of  the  nurse  to  keep  alive  the  spark  of  life  which  had  been 
awakened  by  the  beating  hands  of  the  doctor.  For  little  Finn 
had  been  beaten  into  life.  He  fought  silently  to  live,  lying 
there,  eyes  and  fists  clenched,  the  little  straightened  limbs  set 
stiffly  out  before  him.  It  was  a  silent,  hateful  fight  as  between 
two  invisible  enemies  who  grappled  there  in  silence  and  dark- 
ness. The  doctor  said  that  little  Finn  could  not  live — no 
such  child  had  lived — but  night  after  night  Finn  Fontaine  sat 
in  the  great  chair  between  the  bed  of  Deirdre  and  the  tiny 
thing  that  fought  its  silent  battle  in  the  crib  at  the  side. 

It  was  the  ninth  night  when  Finn  the  little  gave  the  first  sign 
of  life.  It  was  a  sneeze.  To  Finn,  half  dosing  there  in  the 
dark  night  it  came  like  the  emission  from  a  tiny  piston,  with 
steam  behind.  And  in  that  moment  he  knew  that  the  child 
would  live. 

And  he  did  live.  The  little  thing  gradually  came  to  life,  its 
tiny  arms  still  jointless  but  now  pawing  the  air,  the  eyes  open- 
ing more  and  more  as  the  days  went  by,  the  pulse  beating  ever 
more  strongly. 

322 


THE  STORY  OF  FINN  323 

Finn  the  little  lay  there  day  after  day,  as,  later,  he  lay 
through  the  months  in  the  house  with  the  green  door.  He 
lay  there  silent — sometimes  they  thought  silently  reproach- 
ful— with  the  big  eyes  now  changing  to-  dark,  lustrous  wonder- 
ment as  they  looked  upon  a  strange  world. 

So  the  months  went  by — but  little  Finn  was  still  silent.  He 
lay  there  like  a  chrysalis  in  a  cocoon,  receptive  to  everything 
about  him.  He  seemed  to  feel  neither  pain  nor  sorrow,  but, 
as  it  sometimes  came  to  his  father  and  mother,  to  be  looking 
out  upon  a  strange  world  as  an  angel  might  look  out  upon  the 
earth  from  a  cloud. 

For  the  first  months  he  ate  hungrily — and  then  turned  from 
physical  food  as  though  it  were  distasteful — as  though  he  had 
not  the  necessity  of  it. 

Only,  one  evening  in  summer,  Finn,  coming  in  upon  him 
where  he  lay  in  his  crib,  staring  upwards  as  was  his  way, 
found  the  little  mouth  on  one  side,  as  though  the  muscles  had 
only  just  relaxed  for  the  first  time,  the  face  twisting  into  a 
smile,  painfully.  He  was  staring  upwards  at  something  with 
the  great  dark  eyes  that  seemed  to  be  peering  into  other 
worlds. 

And  from  that  moment,  the  little  face  would  break  into, 
first,  a  wry  twisted  smile,  as  though  it  hurt,  and  afterwards  into 
the  all-embracing  welcoming  smile  that  they  got  to  know  and 
which  was  his  way  of  showing  them  how  he  loved. 

At  two  years  he  was  a  child  of  shrivelled  immovable  body, 
but  of  beautiful  glowing  face,  his  life  only  showing  itself  in  his 
eyes  and  in  the  little  strained  movements  of  his  arms  as  though 
he  were  still  fighting  with  things  unseen. 

It  was  towards  the  end  of  the  second  year  that  they  heard 
coming  from  the  tiny  garden  where  he  lay  under  a  solitary 
pear  tree,  one  spring  day,  a  chuckle:  deep,  long,  ecstatic.  It 
had  in  it  the  lust  of  life;  in  its  cadence  something  deep,  satisfy- 
ing. 

They  saw  him  lying  on  his  back  upon  the  little  grass  plot, 
chuckling  deeply  to  himself  as  at  some  huge  joke — sending  out 
chuckle  on  chuckle  to  something  to  them  invisible.  Nor,  as 
they  found  later,  did  he  ever  seem  to  distinguish  between  them 
as  real  and  those  other  things,  whatever  things  they  were,  as 
unreal.  It  often  came  to  them  that  three  parts  of  his  life  lay  in 
the  world  of  the  invisible  and  only  flickering  moments  in  this 


324  GODS 

—but  however  that  might  be,  to  him  both  worlds  were  as  one. 

And  when  they  had  taken  him  to  Ireland  and  had  laid  him 
amongst  the  daisies  on  the  uplands  of  Carrickmore,  he  would 
lie  there  for  hours  by  himself  sending  out  those  deep  chuckles 
of  content. 

To  show  him  a  spotted  foxglove  was  to  bring  from  him  happy 
sighs,  and  once  down  there  by  the  sea  where  Deirdre  had  taken 
him  upon  her  lap  by  the  edge  of  the  green  waters,  he  had  stared 
first  at  them  and  then  at  her,  as  was  his  way,  his  eyes  lumi- 
nous with  love — for  of  all  things  he  loved  her  most,  and  then 
the  little  strained  arms  had  reached  up  towards  her  and  he 
had  tried  to  caress  her,  cooing  in  his  dumb  way. 

She  had  bent  down  over  him,  brushing  back  the  mass  of  his 
hair  from  his  eyes  and  the  tears  had  fallen  fast  upon  the  little 
face  upturned,  whilst  underneath  he  trembled  with  joy  as  a 
flower  in  rain. 

Finn  could  not  sit  up.  He  would  struggle  sometimes  to  raise 
himself,  and  his  mother,  placing  a  hand  behind  the  crippled 
spine  would  help  him  to  look  out  on  the  world  from  another 
angle — but  even  as  the  tiny  body  raised  itself  the  little  head 
would  hang  brokenly  forward  like  a  flower  too  heavy  for  its 
stalk  and  the  eyes  would  fall,  helpless.  And  they  would  think 
of  the  woman  by  the  roadside  of  long  ago  and  little  Paudeen. 

Once,  from  the  high  road  below,  there  had  come  to  them 
where  they  rested  with  Finn  a  tall  woman  clad  in  grey — a 
woman  of  white  hair  and  the  eyes  the  colour  of  her  dress.  She 
had  looked  at  the  child  who  lay  cooing  softly  to  himself  under 
the  foxgloves,  whilst  over  his  head  a  golden  thrush  sang  out 
its  soul  before  the  Lord  in  the  dusk  of  the  autumn  day.  She 
had  come  over  to  the  child,  and  Finn  and  Deirdre,  as  people 
expectant  of  some  miracle,  had  looked  long  and  earnestly  upon 
her  as  they  might  have  looked  upon  a  saint  of  God. 

She  herself  had  gazed  upon  the  boy,  who  had  looked  up  into 
her  face,  a  great  glow  suffusing  head  and  neck  as  was  his  way 
with  strangers.  She  had  looked  long  into  his  eyes  and  then 
had  turned  to  them. 

"This  child  is  not  a  human  child,"  she  had  said.  "He  is 
one  of  those  others.  The  earth  is  not  his  dwelling  place.  He 
must  go  back  to  his  own  people."  In  loving  pity  she  looked 
at  them  and  had  passed  downwards,  disappearing  at  the  turn 
of  the  road  into  the  Irish  gloaming. 


THE  STORY  OF  FINN  325 

For  his  father,  little  Finn  had  his  own  separate  love.  The 
eyes  would  follow  him  everywhere,  and  the  tears — for  he  had 
learned  to  cry  as  he  had  learned  to  smile — would  stand  in  his 
eyes  as  water  over  sun.  He  would  lie  in  his  arms  with  great 
sighs  of  content,  and  it  would  seem  to  Finn  and  Deirdre  as  they 
looked  upon  him  that  all  their  luck  in  the  world  lay  with  little 
Finn.  He  had  been  loaned  to  them.  He  was  theirs  and  not 
theirs.  They  would  say  to  themselves,  half-laughing,  half-be- 
lieving, that,  as  the  Black  Rock  wise  woman  would  tell  them, 
he  had  come  to  them  as  a  child  of  the  Sidhe  or  Fairy  People — 
half  mortal  and  half  god. 

And  so  all  was  well  with  them — or  would  have  been  well 
had  it  not  been  for  a  dead  woman.  For  Deirdre  could  never 
forget  Stella  Fay,  and  it  was  Stella  who  first  came  between 
them — dead  Stella. 


XXXVII 

THE  STORY  OF  FINN  (Continued) 

In  the  beginning,  after  the  coming  of  the  child,  Deirdre  and 
Finn  seemed  to  find  a  new  unity  in  the  frailness  of  the  crib. 
The  coming  of  Finn  seemed  to  bind  them  together,  the  two 
streams  of  their  being  meeting  to  feed  the  flickering  flame  of 
life  which  now,  after  three  years,  seemed  only  to  have  been 
lighted  to  extinguish. 

As  they  looked  into  the  eyes  which  flamed  from  the  cloud 
of  hair  that  swept  back  and  upwards  into  a  halo  of  ruddy 
brown,  it  seemed  to  them  that  in  that  flame  their  own  selves 
had  found  both  their  expression  and  their  fulfilment.  It  seemed 
to  them,  as  Finn  sometimes  said,  that  "their  luck  was  bound 
up"  in  the  child  that  could  sometimes  look  like  a  Jesus-child, 
sometimes  like  a  wild  spirit  of  air — one  of  the  Sidhe  themselves. 

He  would  lie  in  Deirdre's  lap  out  on  the  purple  hills  of  Ire- 
land, looking  at  some  dusky  bee,  heavy  with  honey,  as  he 
worked  over  the  heather  bells,  sometimes  falling  into  that 
ecstasy  which  found  itself  in  those  deep,  pleasureful  chuckles 
which  seemed  to  hold  in  them  all  the  zest  of  life.  Or  where, 
from  some  lofty  headland,  he  hung  brokenly,  he  would  bend 
his  eyes  downwards  from  the  arms  of  his  fair  young  mother 
upon  the  shadowy  amethysts  of  the  swelling  ocean,  as  though 
he  would  drink  his  fill  from  the  depths.  Or,  as  sometimes 
happened,  he  would  lose  himself  from  his  bed  of  scented 
heather  in  the  blue  concave  above  him. 

Finn  and  Deirdre  in  those  early  years  had  fought  against  the 
will  that  had  doomed  their  child  to  silence  and  immobility, 
first  with  hope — then,  with  dull  impotence — and  then  they 
had  quarrelled. 

It  was  partly  the  hopeless  struggle  down  there  in  the  house 
with  the  green  door — the  struggle  to  live.  It  was  little  Finn 
lying  there  the  length  of  the  days,  soundless,  and,  as  it  some- 

326 


THE  STORY  OF  FINN  327 

times  came  to  them,  reproachful.  And  at  last  it  was  the  girl 
with  the  copper  hair. 

For  there  were  times  when  Stella  Fay  seemed  to  drag  her 
gliding  halting  presence  across  their  most  intimate  moments. 
Her  laugh  came  to  them  out  of  the  shadows  about  the  House 
of  Dreams  where  they  sometimes  brought  Finn  to  lay  him  in 
Mrs.  O'Hara's  arms. 

They  would  let  him  lie  out  on  the  dappled  grass,  with  Patsey, 
whose  bead  as  he  became  older,  ever  seemed  to  grow  heavier 
for  the  slender  neck — the  child  who  had  never  grown  up.  For, 
outside  his  father  and  mother,  of  all  creatures  of  human  kind, 
Patsey  was  closest  to  him.  They  seemed  to  have  a  secret  be- 
tween them. 

He  would  look  into  Patsey's  wondering  eyes  of  grey  with 
his  own — those  great  dark  orbs  with  the  golden-green  lights 
that  shone  so  assuredly  as  though  he  were  very  old  and  Pat^ 
sey  the  youngest,  or  was  it  the  oldest,  thing  in  the  world?  and 
would  smile  up  to  him.  And,  except  his  mother,  and  more 
rarely  his  father,  Patsey  was  the  only  human  being  he  tried 
to  caress  with  those  poor  broken  arms,  reaching  up  towards  the 
great  head. 

But  there  was  always  the  girl  with  the  copper  hair.  And 
Finn  would  remember  that  day  when  they  had  laid  her  up  there 
near  the  old  chapel  and  Deirdre's  passionate  confession  of  fear: 
"Finn — she  is  living.  Things  like  Stella  Fay  do  not  die." 

The  dead  girl  would  come  between  them  in  the  very  mo- 
ments when  outer  things  seemed  most  remote,  and  they  would 
catch  the  brightness  of  her  hair  and  see  the  grey  eyes  with 
the  stinging  irises  and  the  hooking  vulpine  nostrils. 

Until  that  day  when  little  Finn,  hearing  the  bitter  words 
between  them,  when  Deirdre  had  reproached  Finn  with  his 
memory  of  the  girl,  reproached  him  unfairly — for  Deirdre 
could  sometimes  be  very  unfair  in  an  angry,  passionate  way — 
had  looked  with  troubled  eyes  into  their  faces,  and  to  their 
haunting  sorrow,  the  lips  had  drooped  piteously  and  the  child 
had  uttered  a  cry  that  seemed  to  come  from  his  heart.  The 
tears  brimmed  in  his  eyes,  and  the  little  body  shook  with  his 
sobs. 

It  seemed  to  them  they  had  been  sinning  against  the  little 
child. 

From  that  moment,  it  was  as  though  the  girl  with  the  cop- 


328  GODS 

per  hair  had  ceased  to  have  power.  From  that  moment,  neither 
of  them  mentioned  her,  and  Deirdre  forgot  that  strange  in- 
consequent jealousy. 

Each  felt  that  in  some  way  little  Finn  and  his  suffering  were 
essentials  to  their  learning.  Despite  Finn's  continued  failures; 
despite  the  fact  that  they  often,  in  the  early  days,  and  before 
Finn's  name  once  more  began  to  loom  large  in  Fleet  Street, 
were  hungry  and  often  wanted  the  ordinary  things  of  life,  or 
just  because  of  these  things,  Deirdre  and  Finn  were  learning 
their  lesson.  In  them  was  growing  a  linking-up  with  the 
things  about  them — that  consciousness  of  continuity  that  was 
immortality — and  with  it,  the  love  of  the  common  things,  the 
common  people.  But  always  consciousness,  as  dead  men  might 
find  the  shadowy  things  of  death  dispelling  in  the  whiteness 
of  resurrection. 

It  came  to  them  ever  more  clearly  that  they  were  children 
learning  in  a  great  school,  perhaps  one  of  many — that  their 
schoolmaster  was  life  itself,  or,  as  it  sometimes  came  to  them — • 
little  Finn,  who  seemed  to  be  guarding  a  secret  from  them, 
a  secret  some  day  to  be  revealed. 

They  would  look  into  the  flaming  eyes  for  their  secret  and 
would  feel  like  very  young  children  looking  into  the  eyes  of 
age.  And  with  it  all,  love  grew  in  them,  love  for  each  other 
and  through  themselves  for  all  things,  a  love  that  in  Finn,  the 
artist,  seemed  to  be  turning  to  creation. 

He  now  understood  something  which  Father  Lestrange  had 
once  said  to  him.  "God,"  he  had  said,  "was  in  Himself  com- 
plete and  all-sufficient,  but  He  was  so  filled  with  the  yearn- 
ing of  love  that  His  love  turned  to  creation.  So  it  was  He 
called  the  world  into  being  and,  having  called  it,  He  yearned 
to  draw  it  into  Himself  again." 

Finn  found  himself  impelled  to  give  of  his  new-found  con- 
sciousness and  of  the  message  that  seemed,  dimly,  to  be  mak- 
ing itself  felt  through  him,  to  the  people  whom  he  met.  There 
came  to  him  ever  more  strongly  that  love  of  his  fellows,  which 
seemed  to  proceed  from  his  love  for  little  Finn,  mixed  some- 
times, now  more  rarely,  with  that  loving-hate  of  old — there 
came  the  impulse  irresistible  to  give  that  love  to  the  world  as 
a  man  gives  off  superfluous  energy,  to  tell  the  world  that  love 
was  the  only  thing  that  mattered — the  only  faith.  It  sent 
him  out  into  the  highways  and  byeways  of  life,  sent  him 


THE  STORY  OF  FINN  329 

amongst  the  poor  and  rejected  of  men,  and,  as  it  sometimes 
seemed,  of  God.  But  with  this  democracy  of  love  there  grew 
steadily  in  him  the  feeling  of  spiritual  aristocracy,  that  quality 
of  Deirdre's,  or,  as  he  put  it,  a  desire  for  an  economic  equality 
combined  with  an  aristocracy  of  spirit.  Human  beings  were 
not  the  same.  They  were  different — as  they  advanced,  increas- 
ingly different.  They  were  separated  by  chasms  of  spirit  and 
mind  which  only  love  could  bridge. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  another  Incident  came  to  disturb  the 
mind  of  Europe — another  Moroccan  incident  as  it  seemed  to 
most — something  to  be  wondered  at,  to  be  talked  over,  and 
then  to  be  forgotten.  Europe  rumbled.  Thrum  thundered. 
Only  this  time  the  reverberations  did  not  die  away — they  be- 
came louder,  with  something  banking  up  behind  struggling  to 
make  itself  felt,  something  that  was  dully  coming  to  the  minds 
of  the  common  people — the  dull  menace  of  the  coming  fact — 
that  fact  which  was  to  change  the  history  of  the  world. 

It  was  at  this  moment,  big  with  fate,  that  Sir  Raymond 
Hilary  threw  into  the  sere  complacency  of  the  Union  of  Scien- 
tists the  second  bombshell  of  the  new  school — following  up 
that  first  bombshell  of  the  years  before  flung  by  him  into  the 
ranks  of  the  British  Association,  challenging  the  Concrete  to 
disproof,  declaring  that  in  his  hands  he  now  held  fresh  and 
absolutely  incontestable  proofs  of  continuity  of  personality 
after  death.  Changing  for  the  first  time  from  defence  to  of- 
fence, he  faced  the  grave  and  reverend  doctors  as  One  before 
him  had  faced  them,  doing  so  from  the  fastness  of  his  presiden- 
tial chair  where  his  reputation  as  physicist  alone  saved  him 
from  the  auto-da-fe  of  science,  Hogge,  first  touching  his  fore- 
head significantly,  then  finally  lending  himself  to  the  eternal 
gesture  of  doubt  which  at  the  time  had  the  shocked  sympathy 
of  the  world  of  science,  in  his  impotent  wrath  placing  his  fingers 
to  the  snub  of  his  scientific  nose  and  extending  them  before 
him,  to  be  followed  by  Professor  Dust,  who  gave  his  now 
famous  dissertation  upon  worms  as  a  sort  of  antidote  to 
immortality. 

The  presses  of  the  world  began  to  stir  with  the  new  liter- 
ature, vomiting  over  the  now  ribald,  now  believing,  conti- 
nents an  old  story  in  new  forms,  reducing  the  men  of  science 
to  dumb  amazement  at  the  credulity  of  some,  the  superstition 


330  GODS 

of  others,  and  the,  to  them,  retrogression  that  seemed  to  be  an 
unfortunate  intrinsic  of  human  development. 

A  prince  of  the  pen,  once  agnostic,  had  made  his  famous  re- 
cantation— his  credo  to  the  glory  of  the  gods  and  the  con- 
fusion of  the  concrete.  The  gods  were  calling,  and,  at  the  call, 
Man,  the  Atavist,  seemed  to  be  tumbling  headlong  into  the 
the  beliefs  of  the  human  twilight,  now  being  called  "the 
twilight  of  the  gods,"  from  which,  through  the  ages,  he  had 
emerged.  It  seemed  as  though  his  doom  were  to  be  the  comple- 
tion of  the  circle  everlasting,  the  circle  of  the  ascending  spiral, 
returning  again  and  yet  again  at  the  call  of  memory,  returning 
to  forgotten  beliefs,  although  perhaps  upon  a  higher  level,  re- 
turning to  something  that  perhaps  in  itself  was  the  eternal 
motor  of  this  turning  world.  For  had  not  man  himself  once 
been  god? 

And  through  it  all,  Europe  rumbled. 


XXXVIII 

THE  PASSING  OF  FINN 

It  was  evening  in  the  House  of  Dreams.  The  westerning  sun 
had  been  sinking  in  golden  shadows  behind  the  ash-grove, 
throwing  them  into  the  house  where  a  blue  haze,  luminous, 
hung,  impalpable.  The  turf  fire  sent  its  blue  smoke  upwards, 
with  sometimes  the  falling  of  a  morsel  sending  a  stream  of 
sparks  slanting  thinly  up  the  chimney. 

The  doors  stood  open,  to  show  the  cobbles  of  the  courtyard, 
and  through  it,  along  the  shafts  of  smoky  light  that  filtered 
through  the  trees  across  the  yard,  there  seemed  to  Deirdre,  sit- 
ting there,  to  be  an  invisible  thronging,  whilst  through  the  win- 
dow, on  the  other  side,  the  stems  of  the  ash  trees  hung  motion- 
less, expectant,  in  the  evening  haze. 

Amongst  the  shadows,  Mrs.  O'Hara,  bent,  moved  a  figure 
of  gloom,  her  silver  hair  shining  beatific  in  the  luminous  haze 
as  she  passed  unquietly  from  room  to  room.  Finn's  form 
darkened  the  doorways  as  he  moved  restlessly  from  place  to 
place.  Patsey  sat  with  his  head  in  the  chimney  corner  in  the 
old  way,  sometimes  moving  to  the  door  to  look  through  the 
door  of  the  verandah  at  the  shadows  across  the  courtyard. 

Only  Deirdre  was  motionless,  bending  over  the  little  crib  in 
the  corner  under  the  window  to  look  at  the  light  of  her  life, 
lying  there  to  gaze  upwards  at  her  through  the  great  eyes, 
now  so  transparent  that  she  seemed  to  see  through  them  into 
the  world  invisible. 

Little  Finn  was  passing  out. 

He  had  lain  there  throughout  the  day,  had  not  wanted  any 
more  to  play  with  the  shadows  on  the  grass,  and  had  begged 
them  silently  to  take  him  to  his  crib — the  crib  he  loved  so 
well — the  little  crib  to  which,  by  looking  at  it  dumbly,  he  al- 
ways asked  to  go  when  he  was  tired  and  the  world  was  too 
much  for  him. 

Little  Finn  was  very  tired. 

331 


332  GODS 

She  hung  over  him,  watching  his  lips  to  catch  a  movement 
— those  movements  she  knew  so  well.  And  still  little  Finn 
gazed  up  at  her  in  that  burning  way,  as  though  he  would  give 
her  that  message — tell  them  his  secret. 

Little  Finn  was  not  crooning  this  evening  of  shadows.  He 
did  not  moan  with  joy  in  the  way  that  he  had  when  the 
shadows  stole  across  his  bed. 

The  little  arms  hung  listless  beside  him,  no  longer  reaching 
out  to  love  and  life.  The  little  mouth  no  longer  drooped  in 
sadness;  no  more  he  whimpered  his  joy  or  his  love.  He  lay 
there,  only  his  eyes  speaking,  looking  upwards  as  though  to 
draw  his  mother  down  to  him  with  that  absorbing  love. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  if  he  would  but  speak  once  to  her,  she 
could  let  him  pass  from  her  in  peace.  But  little  Finn  was 
silent. 

A  thrush  burst  into  song  in  the  purple  shadows  outside,  and 
looking  up  she  saw  behind  the  tracery  of  the  ashes  the  sky 
flushed  with  rose,  and  above,  one  long  cloud  slanting  black 
across  the  heavens,  its  edges  touched  with  gold  as  though  the 
gates  had  been  opened  and  the  golden  floor  were  shining  there 
behind. 

And  still  little  Finn  seemed  to  be  trying  to  speak — trying 
to  tell  her  something.  She  longed  for  the  message  that  did 
not  come. 

Once,  his  father  coming  in  to  bend  over  him,  he  turned  his 
eyes  to  him  to  show  him  that  he  was  not  forgotten — but  his 
business  was  with  his  mother — the  mother  under  whose  heart 
he  had  lain. 

From  outside  came  the  lowing  of  a  cow,  the  sound  that  al- 
ways made  his  eyes  laugh — but  they  did  not  laugh  this  night. 
Nothing  for  him  now  had  existence  save  his  mother,  and  the 
message  he  waited  to  give. 

A  lump  of  peat  fell  into  the  fire  and  a  stream  of  sparks  shot 
upwards  into  the  void  of  the  chimney.  But  little  Finn  did  not 
turn  his  head. 

His  mother  tried  to  give  him  to  drink,  but  the  tiny  lips 
crisped  themselves  into  that  gesture  of  negation.  Drink  was 
finished  for  him.  Everything  was  finished  except  the  message. 

The  shadows  were  heavy  in  the  room. 

From  outside  came  the  cry  of  a  wild  bird  as  it  flew  home- 
wards through  the  upper  air.  And  now  Deirdre  could  see  the 


THE  PASSING  OF  FINN  333 

eyes  gazing  at  her  in  two  liquid  pools  of  flame,  the  light  shining 
through  them.  The  hair  lay  in  lambent  waves  on  the  blue 
silken  pillow  that  he  loved. 

But  now  the  eyes  seemed  to  be  fading  into  the  shadow  gath- 
ering over  the  tiny  face,  as  though  something  were  bending 
over  him.  And  looking,  Deirdre  saw  that  they  had  closed  them- 
selves, the  eyes  behind  seeming  to  look  through  the  veils  of  the 
eyelids. 

The  breath  was  very  low  now.  She  could  scarcely  see  the 
movement  of  the  tiny  breast.  Sudden  terror  seized  her  as  she 
bent  lower,  fearing. 

She  bent  lower  still,  looking  eagerly  into  the  face,  now  so 
tiny.  Bent  to  catch  the  breath  as  it  flickered  back  and  forth 
— and  then,  terrified,  because  she  could  not  feel  its  warmth 
upon  her  face. 

And  then,  in  the  extremity  of  her  fear,  when  she  had  reached 
her  hand  up  to  Finn,  stading  behind,  the  eyes  had  opened, 
the  lips  had  moved  once,  twice,  and  then  there  came  low, 
distinct: 

"Mama." 

Little  tired  Finn  had  closed  his  eyes. 


XXXIX 

THE   UNKNOWN   GOAL 

It  was  there  over  the  cot  with  little  Finn,  the  lips  drooping 
with  that  smile,  lying  at  last  asleep  as  though  tired  out  with 
life,  that  Finn  and  Deirdre  knew  now  that  death  was  but 
an  incident  of  life — that  there  was  no  death — and  with  thq 
knowledge  found  the  hope  that  draws  its  stuff  from  the  looms 
of  immortality  and  faith.  Faith  had  come  to  them  there,  beat- 
ing upon  them  in  great  waves,  the  faith  that  is  born  of  death 
and  love. 

They  laid  the  tiny  coffin  up  there  under  the  shadow  of  the 
chapel,  amongst  the  dead  of  a  thousand  years.  Over  the  tiny 
mound  they  placed  only  a  bunch  of  shamrocks  and  a  little  Irish 
cross  of  grey  limestone,  on  it  the  two  words: 

Little  Finn. 

All  those  who  had  loved  him  in  life  came  to  follow  him  up 
there  under  the  chapel.  The  child,  whose  loving  eyes  had 
drawn  to  him  all  those  men  and  women.  And  with  them  the 
little  children  who  had  liked  to  come  to  him  to  look  upon  him 
and,  as  they  said,  "to  get  Finn's  blessing,"  came  and  laid 
flowers  upon  him  and  watered  the  tiny  mound  with  their  tears. 
And  so  they  had  left  him  up  there  to  the  winds  of  God  and 
the  bounty  of  the  July  heavens. 

Finn  and  Deirdre  had  returned  to  London  on  the  eve  of  the 
Great  War.  The  volcano  of  Europe  was  rumbling  and  was 
even  beginning  to  send  upwards  the  first  of  those  pillars  of 
smoke  and  fire  that  were  to  be  the  forerunners  of  the  burning 
death.  But  democracy,  with  its  blind  hopeless  faith,  began 
to  gather  itself  together  in  the  path  of  Fate,  to  turn  her  from 
her  goal — the  Fate  which  could  not  be  turned. 

And  now  the  common  people  were  gathering  themselves 

334 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOAL  335 

over  there  in  London,  where  the  leaders  of  democracy  had  come 
from  the  four  corners  of  the  world  this  August  afternoon  to 
stem  the  lava  of  war.  Every  nation  in  Europe  had  sent  her 
men  and  women — and  there,  in  the  great  square,  under  the 
brassy  August  heavens,  they  had  collected  themselves,  the 
common  people,  about  the  plinth,  as  a  last  forlorn  hope  gathers 
itself  before  the  final  charge  that  leads  to  annihilation. 

Forlornly  the  leaders  stood  under  their  red  banners,  cling- 
ing to  the  foot  of  the  column  and  looking  out  over  the  faces 
turned  whitely  upwards  from  under  the  grinning  lions,  crouch- 
ing to  spring. 

There  they  ran  in  pallid  eagerness  to  the  farthest  confines 
of  the  square,  a  welter  of  humanity,  soundless,  unprotesting 
humanity,  gathered  together  like  cattle  preparing  for  the 
slaughter.  Dumbly  they  stood,  looking  upwards  to  the  swarthy 
bearded  faces  of  the  Latins  and  the  fairer  heads  of  Teuton  and 
Englishman — gazed  upwards  at  the  red  banners  that  dyed  the 
altar  of  the  plinth  a  bloody  crimson  under  the  glowing  sun,  as 
men  who  waited  for  a  miracle. 

Finn  and  Deirdre,  climbing  upon  the  plinth,  saw  stretching 
out  before  them  that  great  dumb  cattleyard;  heard  the  whis- 
per of  voices  sulking  across  the  mass  as  the  wind  sulks  through 
the  trees;  saw  them  standing  in  that  light  as  though  they 
stood  'twixt  hell  and  heaven  with  the  glare  of  furnaces  blending 
with  the  golden  light  above. 

Finn  looked  at  them,  standing  with  his  hand  in  that  of 
Deirdre,  who  had  clung  to  him.  He  stood  there  to  read  the 
message  of  this  great  crowd  of  every  nation  upon  earth,  drawn 
together  as  for  the  last  judgment,  waiting  only  the  trumpet  of 
Gabriel.  And  still  the  sun  beat  down  in  torrid  waves,  from 
which  came  blasts  as  from  the  mouths  of  open  furnaces. 

He  looked  upwards  into  the  brazen  heavens,  into  which  black 
clouds  were  coming,  fighting,  eating,  their  way  into  the  heart 
of  the  sun,  as  though  they  would  extinguish  it — saw  the  hands 
of  the  clock  upon  the  church  on  the  other  side  of  the  square 
as  the  fingers  of  fate,  and  caught  in  the  passing  of  the  seconds 
the  hush  that  even  then  was  spreading  over  Europe.  The  silence 
that  was  so  soon  to  be  shattered. 

As  he  looked,  there  came  to  him  a  great  pity.  These  white- 
faced  dumb  creatures  seemed  to  be  awaiting  something,  no 
more  able  to  help  themselves  than  the  ox  under  the  sledge 


336  GODS 

— waiting  for  fate  to  do  her  will  on  them.  And  looking,  there 
came  to  him  a  vision  of  the  millions  beyond — those  waiting 
millions  throughout  the  world  playing  their  parts  unconscious, 
waiting  blindly  like  animals  in  the  slaughter  house  of  Europe. 

There  came  to  him  the  sweating  nerveless  millions  who  had 
preceded  them — those  millions  who,  like  them,  had  died  un- 
complaining— theirs  also  the  bloody  sweat,  the  helplessness,  the 
impotence  of  the  unconscious.  He  thought  of  the  unborn  fecun- 
dating generations,  also  blind,  unconscious.  He  saw  them 
like  their  forefathers  looking  for  a  saviour — looking  for  one 
who  should  save  them  from  fate. 

And  still  the  sun  beat  sweltering  down  through  the  heavy 
dust-laden  air. 

He  thought  of  the  men  who  had  preached  at  them — of  the 
men  who  had  written  for  them — of  the  message  that  the  chosen 
ones  of  the  earth  had  brought,  that  had  fallen  upon  ears  un- 
heeding— of  the  message  that  even  now  they  were  trying  to 
bring  as  little  Finn  had  tried  to  bring  his.  He  thought  of  the 
blood  and  of  the  tears  that  such  men  and  women  had  shed ;  how 
they  had  brought  out  life  upon  the  earth  in  labour  and  tears — 
how  they  lived  in  tears — how  they  would  die  tearless. 

There  they  stood,  white-faced,  staring  upwards  at  the  fig- 
ures on  the  plinth — that  light  of  neither  earth  nor  sky  beating 
down  upon  them  in  fiery  baptism. 

He  thought  of  how  these  men  had  fought  like  beasts  when 
man  first  roamed  the  earth — how  they  had  been  trampled  on 
as  slaves — had  given  their  daughters  and  sons  as  flesh  to  their 
masters,  as  prey  to  that  greedy  Moloch  that  even  now  seemed 
to  gape  in  brassy  fire  above  them  demanding  sacrifice  unending. 

He  saw  them  as  one  of  those  countless  waves  of  beings  clam- 
bering up  from  the  waters  that  threatened  to  engulf  them — 
wave  on  wave  in  line  unending.  He  saw  them  falling  as  they 
climbed,  the  others  passing  over  their  naked  bodies,  all  press- 
ing on  to  the  unknown  goal. 

He  saw  them  staring  upwards  to  a  Figure  above  them — to 
that  fate  which  seemed  to  beckon  them  to  something — to  life 
everlasting  through  present  death.  He  saw  them  pressing  in 
the  ages  to  come,  ceaseless,  resistless  under  the  Urge  Behind, 
under  that  urge  which  could  not  be  stifled.  Climbing  to  the 
Unknown  Goal. 

Dumbly  they  stared  at  the  figures  on  the  plinth — dumbly. 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOAL  337 

And  there  was  a  terrible  silence  as  of  death,  with  life  beating 
deep  within,  like  a  great  heart. 

From  the  tower  of  the  church  came  four  clanging  strokes 
like  the  sound  of  hammer  on  anvil. 

At  the  sound,  a  woman  had  sunk  upon  her  knees  on  the 
plinth  to  pray — a  poor,  ill-dressed  woman.  Her  voice  came 
thinly  over  the  multitude.  Something  ran  through  the  mass 
beneath. 

Again  the  voice  came,  thinly. 

And  then,  with  the  light  beating  redly  upon  them  as  upon 
some  sacrifice  made  ready,  the  multitude  had  begun  to  stir  un- 
easily. The  heads  were  moving  in  tremulous  swathes  as  when 
the  wind  runs  over  the  harvest  corn,  shivering  under  the  sickle 
of  the  reaper. 

And  now  the  heart  of  the  mass  was  moaning  as  some  living 
suffering  thing.  And  then  all — the  face  of  Jew  and  Gentile, 
bond  and  free,  those  about  to  sacrifice  and  be  sacrificed,  had 
lifted  up  there  towards  that  high  altar — lifted  up  there  with 
new  staunchless  hope  shining.  Shining  to  the  prayer  of  the 
woman. 

"Love,"  she  said.  "Love,  oh  dear  God!  love!  Let  there  be 
love." 

Murmurous  came  the  answering  litany  from  beneath,  as 
though  all  the  tongues  of  earth  were  speaking — blending  in  one 
great  voice. 

And  now  the  mass  was  swaying  under  the  dusk-red  light, 
as  though  wave  upon  wave  were  running  athwart  them.  The 
murmur,  rising  and  falling,  was  the  pulsing  of  some  mighty 
sea,  instinct  with  power  and  life,  dumb  fate  cradling  the 
whole. 

To  Finn  and  Deirdre  standing  there,  it  came  as  a  sort  of 
voiceless  chorus,  all-pervading  but  noiseless — came  as  the 
scourge  of  countless  feet  upon  the  beaten  roads  of  life,  the  foot- 
steps of  humanity  shuffling  onwards  to  the  one,  unknown  goal. 


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